My New Year’s wish list
Credit to Author: MIKE POTENCIANO| Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2019 16:21:21 +0000
We have been recapping last year’s racing champions from the different disciplines in the past weeks in our articles here in The Manila Times. We are very happy to note that motor sports is getting bigger every season, with good support from car manufacturers, oil companies and racers themselves.
If you have been following our MP Turbo Rally of Champions, we have made such an impact that we are really on the radar of a lot of avid drivers and supporters. We had the country’s biggest oil player Petron Corporation, car brands Kia, Honda, Subaru Cainta and Ford all supporting us.
The local government of Antipolo has set the standard for supporting the ROC by closing its major circumferential road to host the best leg ever. We also got special support from Subic Tourism, Subic Coastal Development Corporation and Canlubang Lifestyle Center, which fulfilled our dreams of making the ROC the Decathlon of motor sports!
There are still a lot to do to bring back the golden days of motor sports. Here are some of my New Year’s wish list to help make our passion the best there is.
1. Make ROC nationwide
We will now push for making our Rally of Champions go to the different places around the country like Cebu, Bacolod and new venues in Luzon. We got a lot of invites to bring the ROC events to their areas and we are now firming up our schedule to make it happen.
2. ROC open to international drivers
We hope that we can get international champions to compete against our local champions soon. This will improve our drivers’ skills and gauge how they fare against foreign competition. This will also be a step towards making our own concept into an international series and pushing for a regional ASEAN ROC soon.
3. Putting motor sports in multimedia
We have to bring the world of motor sports into the living rooms and the cell phones of the public. There is already support from Manila Times with our column and articles. C! Magazine is also throwing their support with feature stories monthly. We are in talks with cable TV channels, radio stations and even making our website up to par. This will be a great marketing tool to get sponsors to consider motor sports as a good venue to promote their products.
4. Revive MP Turbo’s race/rally/kartingschool
We will need to get new blood into the sport and karting is the best place to start the new generation of drivers into the sport. We have to find the future champions early on and get junior drivers interested in motor sports. We are going to invest time and effort to make this happen soon and announce it ASAP.
5. Organize new racing events
We got very good response from our new dirt racers in the Dirt Trials’ leg of the ROC last month. Now we are happy to note that we have good talks to do more dirt events, hillclimbs and rallies. There is also a move to revive our Ultimate OffroadSpeedfest Championship in which Motocross, 4×4 and other races all come together in one weekend. Our dream of holding a proper Dakar Rally is also not far away.
6. Have more prizes for race winners
We always feel for the participants who have to spend much to prepare their cars and themselves to race. We have to make it worth their while to compete and win during our races. This has been the norm in Motocross where thousands are given as cash prizes and appearance fees. The Toyota Vios Cup is a very good example when a big manufacturer gets behind the event and gives a brand new Vios is given to the series’ winner at the end of the year.
7. Getting 2 and 4 wheels together
The Antipolo Speedfest showed how exciting an event can be if we have various forms of vehicles together, with either 2-4 wheels in one event. We have done this in our ROC with Moto Gymkhana included and our Offroad Speedfest mentioned above. Now, we are looking at Hillclimbs with bikes and cars running together and the ultimate Dakar Rally with all kinds of vehicles running in the dirt.
8. Sponsors to adopt a racing discipline
We hope more sponsors will see the value of motor sports to promote their products. We are positive that the slogan, “What wins on Sunday, Sells on Monday!” is very relevant now especially with the sluggish automotive market that the country is experiencing. We are in talks with more car manufacturers and motoring products for this year. We hope we can get them to join us and really support each other.
9. Make the race fans happy
The race fans are the lifeline of the event and we have to make them happier and enjoy the races. With a lot of sports activities happening every weekend, it is not easy to get people to the races. This is the challenge to all organizers and I believe the wishes above will help bring them back.
10. Just do it!
Taking the cue from a popular sports product, we should just do it! All of these will not matter if we don’t get off our butts, exert tremendous effort and prioritize all the wishes above to make it happen. I know it will happen overnight but at least, we have started it.
Happy New Year to all and let’s all push for a great race/rally season ahead! Godspeed to all!
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