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Petron Xtra Mile Challenge
Fuel idols
Desperately wanting to be commercial celebrities, we sign up for the Petron Xtra Mile Challenge Media Edition and drive a Honda City to the very last drop.
Words by Vernon B. Sarne; Photography by Jaykee Q. Evangelista
Maybe it was Sam Milby. Or Piolo Pascual. Or even Polo Ravales. We were so sick of driving through EDSA and seeing gigantic billboards of these cheesier-than-cheese men that we thought to ourselves: Why can't we have a billboard of our own? A print ad perhaps...a poster. Anything that displays our image to a clueless, adoring public. That would have been a cool idea except we looked like gargoyles, with faces that seemed a better fit for a Wes Craven movie poster than a Bench billboard.
Whatever, we realized that the only way a company would get us to grace its advertising materials was if a viral epidemic wiped out all good-looking men in this country. Which is like saying we'd get to date Anne Curtis and Bianca King if and when all their leading men died of diarrhea. Or something like that.
We then figured that the only way we'd become billboard attractions was if we joined the Petron Xtra Mile Challenge Media Edition, a fuel-economy contest in which part of the winners' prize was the rare opportunity to appear in various advertising and promotional materials. And these included, among others, newspaper ads, TV spots, countless banners at Petron fuel stations, and yes, the occasional billboard. Did you ever see those ubiquitous banners of brothers Emilio and Emmanuel Zayco at Petron stations nationwide? They were the ones responsible for that record 1,400-kilometers-on-just-one-full-tank mileage. Hence, they became like rock stars. I imagine they would roll into a Petron station anywhere and service attendants would line up to get their autographs. Wow! We wanted that kind of superstardom. Over and above the P150,000 winning pot, it was the once-in-a-lifetime shot at commercial fame that got our motor running. Sign us up, please.
The concept was simple. There were 10 media teams, so that meant Team Top Gear (made up of yours truly and senior art director Jaykee Evangelista) was to compete with nine other media outfits. All the teams drove either a Honda Jazz or a Honda City. Whoever went the farthest distance on just a full tank of Petron Xtra Unleaded fuel won the contest. The route took us from Bangui in Ilocos Norte all the way to Sorsogon in Bicol. So one day we were frolicking on the beach of Pagudpud, and the following day we were staring at the breathtaking Mayon Volcano.
Many in our group secretly grumbled about the alcohol ban strictly imposed by the event organizers, but it contributed positively to everyone's driving performance during the entire trip. And because we didn't drink, we went to bed much earlier than usual, giving us a healthy supply of energy in the morning and enabling us to stay alert and safe behind the wheel. There was one day when we drove a total of 500 kilometers and not once did we feel drowsy.
Team Top Gear had a support team dedicated solely to us, and they—Bernie Santos and Conrad Gacad—did a splendid job in making sure we overtook on a clear lane, avoided pesky bottlenecks and made the right turns. We're pretty sure we pissed off a lot of people while tailgating each other, but we just had to do what we had to do in order to win.
Perhaps wanting to train all of us on the ins and outs of show business—the winners, after all, would see themselves on various advertising materials—Petron hired comedian Epi Quizon to join the weeklong journey. The presence of Epi—who, by the way, proved to be very pleasant and self-effacing, unlike, we suppose, all those billboard models—all the more nurtured our grand illusions of prominence.
It was also a good thing we had bought our 13,500-song iPod. Music was the only thing that kept us from wrestling each other during the trip. Any degree of tension melted away with Vilma Santos' "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head." No kidding: Play her CD going up to Baguio and see if road rage is still possible. There's something terribly wrong with you if you still manage to angrily chase a car on the freeway in spite of Ate Vi's "Then Along Came You, Edgar" permeating the cabin.
One of the most important things we learned during our quest for commercial superstardom was that excess weight is always a handicap. Of the 10 cars used in the competition, seven were Jazz units and three were Citys. Unfortunately, a City—significantly heavier than a Jazz—was assigned to us. There went our billboard dreams, we thought. True enough, the first car to run out of gas was a City (that of Ira Panganiban and Andy Sevilla). There was simply no way a City would beat a Jazz in a fuel-economy contest. But we still managed to beat four Jazzes and two Citys. We merely fell short by some 30 kilometers to make it to the top three.
Our team was among a handful of those tipped off to win the contest, along with the Philippine Star team of Jeff Reyes and Lester Dizon and the Auto Review team of Ronald de los Reyes and Raymund Sanchez. In the end, it was the team of Roman Floresca and Delfin Perez (assistant business editors of Philippine Star and Manila Bulletin) that managed to extract the most number of kilometers from their full tank, coming to a stop at the 1,344-kilometer mark.
Dang! The winners had to be the team least interested in a billboard spot. Guess we will have to be content staring at Sam Milby's product endorsements, which, thankfully, can be made bearable by the soothing voice of Ate Vi.
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Top Gear Philippines - May 2007
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