Mini Rally Team takes home the trophy—for keeps
After five years of being a much-awaited event that’s exclusive to the auto industry, the STV Auto Rally Corporate Challenge (ARCC) finally crowned a 3-time Corporate Team Champion of the Year.
The Mini Rally Team, led and managed by multi-brand auto industry tycoon, Willy Tee Ten notched last Saturday their third championship win. And according to the rules of the motor sport competition, which has established itself as a yearly auto industry tradition, any team that registers three wins keeps the STV ARCC Championship Trophy for their own permanent private display.
Their feat though would be a little difficult to match, much more to upend considering that the Mini Rally Team not only registered three championships, but they were back-to-back-to-back wins or three in a row, since it started joining the competition, which is exclusive to auto industry members and the only motor sport competition that auto industry players openly compete in against each other.
The STV ARCC officially started in 2010 with the Ford-Mazda Rally Team registering the first ever championship and the right to hold on and display the championship trophy until the next champion claims it. In 2011 the Subaru Rally Team took over the honors of bringing home the trophy. After the victory, rumors have it that many of the members of the winning team did not see eye-to-eye with their team manager and decided to take their chances with another auto brand and another style of team management. And so was born the Mini Rally Team and as the old cliché goes, “the rest is history.” The Mini Rally Team took the championship on the very first year they started, which was in 2012 and never looked back.
The 3-year championship victory was sealed when the Mini Rally Team took the overall honors in the 2nd leg of the Caltex with Techron 2014 STV Auto Rally Corporate Challenge series held last Saturday, November 22 in Subic where the flag off and finish line were at the Ayala Harbor Point Mall, “where every day is a holiday” as their corporate tag goes. And it was like a holiday indeed as 38 brand new vehicles of different brands and models representing 12 Corporate Teams with the following brands: Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Isuzu, Jeep, Lexus, Mazda, MINI, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Volkswagen were flagged off the starting grid.
To guide those who may not still know, the ARCC is a motor sport competition that’s not based on speed but rather on precision driving. Winning is determined by coming closest to the time given to travel from one point to another. Another prerequisite is to be “on time, all the time” anywhere between the two given points, which would be determined by check points that are situated anywhere between the given points. Travel time that goes beyond or under the given time would mean a demerit for every second of discrepancy. The competitor that registers the least number of demerits wins.
Another very important factor of the competition is road safety considering that the participating vehicles run on public roads together with other motorists and pedestrians while competing. Being such, any participant that’s caught by traffic authorities and event marshals violating traffic rules, most specially running within illegal speeds would immediately be disqualified and stopped from participating to avoid further endangering the other participants and users of the road.
During the Subic leg we observe that the level of competition and skills have leveled up. And this improvement has been going on from the start and have heightened since two years ago when we decided to have two legs per year making more participants competing more often—“practice makes perfect.”
Proofs of this observation are the perfect and near perfect scores achieved last Saturday. On Checkpoint 2, Mini # 8 manned by Eric Valera, Maochi Aurelio and Jic Valera registered a perfect time or “0” demerit. The same was also achieved by Mini #20 on Checkpoint 4 with Monch Gupit, Carlo Villanueva and Jan Gomez onboard.
While most of the above-mentioned have been participating since the ARCC started, the crew of Chevrolet #14 manned by Michael Espanol, Irish Laraza and Karla Canlas were all “first-timers” that made a similar impressive perfect score, “0” demerit also on Checkpoint 2.
To further strengthen the observation, on Checkpoint 5, eight cars came up with a near perfect score of 1 demerit, which means that they all missed the given time by a mere second. If that’s not leveling up skills, I don’t know what is.
The winners of the 2nd leg (Subic) Caltex 2014 STV ARCC
Individual Teams
Champion – Mini #20 – Monch Gupit / Carlo Villanueva / Jan Gomez
2nd Place – Mini #8 –Eric Valera / Maochi Aurelio / Jic Valera
3rd Place – Mini #32 – Elbert Cuenca / Bhonny Cunamay / Willy Tee Ten
Corporate Teams
Champion – Mini Rally Team
1st Runner up – Subaru Rally Team
2nd Runner up – Honda Rally Team
But the Mini Rally Team may have had the chills in the 1st leg of the Caltex with Techron 2014 STV ARCC when they bowed down to the Subaru Rally Team in Tagaytay last May, the team that was poised to be a spoiler of their plans of doing a consecutive sweep. Had Subaru registered a win in the 2nd leg in Subic, they would also be in line to be able to keep the championship trophy permanently and the accompanying bragging rights, being just like the Mini Rally Team having two championships each.
But the rules were made exactly not to make participants give up hope after a dismal performance in the first leg, which only reflects 30 percent of the final combined scores of the 1st and 2nd legs.
In his remarks during the Awards Night, which was held right after the rally also at the Ayala Harbor Point right at its expansive activity area, Willy Tee Ten, who’s not only the Mini Rally Team’s sole benefactor but its chief time navigator as well, made no qualms about deserving the right to keep the prestigious ARCC Championship Trophy due to their team’s efforts to improve their skills by spending time practicing before each leg.
The overall winners of the Caltex with Techron 2014 STV ARCC
Champion – Mini Rally Team
1st Runner up – Subaru Rally Team
2nd Runner up – Honda Rally Team
Proceeds of the STV ARCC all go to the Socio Com Foundation for Asia to support their advocacy to promote road safety by conducting free seminars (Young Street Smarts Road Safety School Tour) in schools to teach students to become safe and responsible road users.
We would like to thank Chevron Philippines, Ayala Harbor Point Malls, Lighthouse Marina Resort and SBMA for supporting the Caltex with Techron 2014 Sunshine TV Auto Rally Corporate Challenge.
Happy Motoring!!!
Contact: [email protected] / [email protected].
- Latest
