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By Ira Panganiban, Correspondent
We were first to leave. We were first to arrive at every stop point.
First at the buffet line and first to take off after meals. We were
first to take our rest and first to leave every morning. We were
also first to run out of fuel.
But because we were competing in
a fuel economy run, we had to finish last. More to the point, we had
to drive the farthest on single full tank of gas.
We—meaning I and teammate Andy
Sevilla of the BusinessMirror—were competing at the Petron Extra
Mile Challenge Media Edition, an event that calls on participants to
drive the longest distance on a single tank of Petron Xtra Unleaded
fuel on board three Honda Jazz hatchbacks and City sedans. Six teams
qualified in this edition of the fuel economy event.
The event’s first record was
set by local motor sports legend Pocholo Ramirez, who logged in
about 1,100 kilometers. In the event’s second edition held last
year, that record was in turn broken by Team Zayco Hermanos, made up
of two brothers who drove a Honda Jazz to a spectacular distance of
1,400.4 kilometers. That record was what we intended to break.
Competition began on January 10
in Bangui, Abra, after an overnight stay in Saud Beach in Pagudpud.
Everyone was up by 3 a.m. and we were all jittery as our tanks were
given a final top-up at Petron Bangui.
During the transport stage prior
to the main run where we had to bring our vehicles from the North
Luzon Expressway to Ilocos Norte, our team logged the best fuel
consumption at 20.5 liters to a liter, so we were confident at the
start.
A raffle draw determined which
team takes off first, and we got the number one slot. So we,
together with our support team Dindo de Jesus and Ronald “Ospa”
Magno immediately took off.
From Bangui, we cruised between
50 to 60 kph at around the 1,500 to 1,700 rev range, and drove about
80 kilometers to Grandpa’s Inn in Vigan for breakfast. We passed
through 11 towns to get there.
After Vigan, next leg was a drive
to San Fernando, La Union, 140 kilometers away. By that time, we it
was already 9 a.m. Trucks, cars and the ubiquitous tricycle now
littered the roads.
At 5 p.m., we arrived at our next
and final stop for the day, where we had to switch off the engine
then push the car it to its designated parking space for the night.
At that point, we had traveled
366 kilometers traversing half of Northern Luzon.
The following day was a killer.
We had to be up by one in the morning as take-off time was set at 3
a.m. That’s because we had to cross both the NLEX and SLEX, EDSA
and reach Naga by the end of the day.
Our fuel gauge indicated we were
still close to the full-tank mark as we set off for a 146-kilometer
run.
In Lucena City our fuel condition
had drastically changed. We were then nearing half-tank level and we
still haven’t reached the rough roads and the mountains yet.
Our next stop was at Del Gallego
in Camarines Sur. By then, we had already traveled 792 kilometers
and needed only 600 plus to break the Zayco Hermanos record.
Unfortunately, it was not to be.
Taking off first again, we
encountered all the horrors one could possibly imagine when doing a
fuel economy run. One-way roads that had trucks crossing it before
we could, towns that were congested with jeepneys and tricycles,
traffic conditions that were plain horrible.
An hour-and-a-half before the
next stop at Naga, our fuel gauge warning light came on and we knew
we were in trouble. We reached the Naga stop at about 4 p.m. and me
and my partner were really worried.
So we went to bed early to take
as much rest as possible for the next day’s last run to Matnog at
the tip of Luzon.
At 5 a.m. we left Naga for Matnog
and after a brief discussion with our support crew, we decided to
use our best advantage—the terrain. The drive involved mostly
downhill slopes so we cruised in neutral gear most of the time and
tried our best to go as far as we can.
Meanwhile, we also tried to
conserve as much fuel as we can by simply chugging along on uphill
portions.
We managed to reach Matnog, where
we finally ran out of gas, meaning we couldn’t turn around anymore
for the next leg. In total, we were able to travel 1,158.50
kilometers on a full tank of gasoline. Not bad, really, as we were
able to break Ramirez’s record.
In the end, Roman Floresca of The
Philippine Star and Delfin Perez of the Manila Bulletin beat all the
teams by traveling 1,343.7 kilometers on a full tank. The duo was
followed by racing veterans Jeff Reyes and Lester Dizon with a
1,336.0-figure and third-best were Jess Garcia and Joseph Javier
with a total of 1,326.7 kilometers logged.
As for us, we were first among
the teams to retire. Like I said, we were always first.
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