Calvin’s Hub

Last Saturday I was invited to join the 2010 Sampaguita TV Auto Rally Corporate Challenge. Actually, Abe needed a partner for the auto rally and he asked if I would be available on that day. I said sure even though I had no idea how an auto rally works. It turned out to be one of the most mentally challenging but fun activity I’ve ever participated on.

This Auto Rally is not about driving skills only but more importantly, a test of your time management and route mastery skills. Speed is not a factor because it’s about being on time and besides, the average speed we had to do was 40 kph.

Abe was the driver and I was the navigator. There were around 65 cars, five from each 13 car manufacturers and we represented Team Honda. We drove a Honda Jazz with the new Helios Yellow color that I usually associate with sports cars or airport taxis.

Easy Start

We started at Ortigas Home Depot early in the morning and our destination was Subic. Getting there was pretty easy because all we need to do is stay within the convoy and not break the sequence (no overtaking). Not much work for the navigator in this part of the race.

Cruising at the SCTEX and keeping up with this Porsche

We were following this Portia all the way to Subic and our Jazz was no match whenever it zooms after passing a toll gate.

The Race

There were 4 stages in the race that will take you to different areas around Subic and also a bonus stage at the Subic International Raceway. What you have to do is follow the route book with the correct speed to achieve the closest (perfect) time possible, taking into consideration speed limits and traffic. There were checkpoints scattered throughout the route that you need to stop at to have your time recorded.

Here’s a sample route.

Looks pretty easy huh? But it’s actually harder especially if there are no landmarks available and you’re not familiar with the place like around Zoobic Safari. All you can do is measure the distance traveled and hope that the turn is where it’s supposed to be.

We got lost a few times and had to go back to our last correct route to try again. During one of our wrong turns, we managed to hit a low parking cement barrier covered in grass and damaged the lower part of our bumper. It caved in so bad that it rendered our car useless for the race.

That really sucked. We had to forfeit stages 2 and 3 and continue with stage 4 in the afternoon with a new car (Honda City). Stage 4 was a bit better, we still got lost but still managed to go through all the checkpoints in good time (we think).

Hopefully, the other Team Honda participants got some really good scores to pull ours up for a decent overall finish. Our mishap was really a downer and it was embarrassing for the whole team.

Challenging experience

It’s really hard for a navigator to keep track of the speed, time, distance and directions all at the same time to get a really good score especially for beginners. Aside from computing the time needed for each route section, you also need to compute the total time to get to a checkpoint so you know what time to aim for in case you get lost and have to catch up.

Scene at the Subic International Raceway while waiting for our turn. You can see the two Porsche cars in front of the green Mazda 2.

It was fun though especially seeing all those sedans, SUV’s, pick-ups from MB, Porsche, Lexus, etc. going through SIR’s circuit. I personally liked the drool-inducing Mazda MX5. Hehehe.

It was a really tiring yet thrilling experience and I want to do it again to redeem ourselves. Next time I would know what to expect and how to prepare. To Honda, thank you for giving me the opportunity to represent you in this auto rally.

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