I knew it would be a lot of fun and challenging as
well, so I insisted to join the Treasure Hunt & Fun Rally held
yesterday April 30,2006 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Automobile
Association of the Philippines. With our MCP member GUS LAGMAN as
the current president of the AAP, there was no way that the Miata
Club couldn't field at least one team.
Luckily, I was able to complete a team to ride my
Grand Vitara. With JOEY Bernardez, JR Tanpinco, and SANTY Lomotan,
we were team number 5 against 26 other teams. It was a mix of car clubs,
media, and family teams.
Our route took us from the Petron station at the
Macapagal hiway passing through Roxas Blvd/MIA road/Domestic Airport Road/South
expressway service road/C5 all the way to UP/to the Petron station at PHilcoa
near the Elliptical road after UP.
Along the way, we had to fill up a
questionnaire whose answers we would find along the way. I had to drive
carefully while Joey navigated, and JR with Santy were busy looking out for the
answers. There were fun questions like "who was Delilah's korean
husband?.....................we guessed SAMSUNG then we knew
we got the answer right when we saw the big SAMSUNG ad
along C5. There were at least 50 trivial questions along the way.
Other questions were " what is the color of the ribbon ............? "
answer RED ribbon, as we passed Manong's shop along C5.
That was the easy part. The second leg gave
us a taste of what rallying was all about. There were no
more questions to answer. We were given a second set of
directions to travel at a steady speed and make a turn after several
seconds. And this was along the Quezon City Circle. I knew it
was critical to be precise as we could turn to any of the four main
roads...VISAYAS AVE, NORTH AVE, QUEZON AVE, or EAST AVE. We
decided to turn at Quezon Ave, and this is when we started to get
HOPELESSLY LOST,................ but we didnt give up that
easily. Our four brains started rationalizing and calculating
.........what if we were supposed to turn to the other ave? or that
ave?......etc..... Meanwhile JR got hungry so he reached out for the
DOMINO'S pizza in the back seat, and we all started to eat while we then figured
out how to get back in track.
After several kilometers of unplanned
sightseeing, we found our way back to the checkpoint and we decided to
just take on the next leg. The next leg was to take us back to the
start/finish line but travelling back via C5 but cutting throught the FORT and
then taking EDSA to BLUE WAVE . This time JR was navigating and after
several kilometers, he noticed that the instructions were too simple since
there were no time or distance calculations to make, nor precision driving
required. HAHAHAHAH.........it was back to TREASURE HUNT........and we
didnt have the questionnaire............!!!! We all laughed at ourselves as
we had turned around to go back for it. We felt so silly but still having
a lot of fun.
Anyway, we were able to finish the leg and answer
the questions...... ( like............Garlic Child??.....answer was "BOY BAWANG"
of course!!) We were treated to a lunch by GERRY"S GRILL while we waited for the
rest of teams to finish
When it was time for the awards, we knew we would
not get any. Since only the top 5 teams were given trophies. We
concluded we were 6th place........or 7th....or maybe
8th........
It didn't really matter. We had a great time
laughing at ourselves, specially when we learned that there were many
others who were more hopelessly lost than us. My thanks to my team members.
( we are still friends after the rally)............... and my
congratulations to the AAP and its 75th anniversary .
Next event is the AAP parade on May 7
sunday. We take off from the Manila Hotel and it will be a nice
Sunday drive around the city.
Chito Frondoso
1 May
2006
