DRIVING THOUGHTS

If there’s an event that has established a reputation of prestige, it’s the Toyota Road Trek which has been held for 18 years since 2005, pausing only for the pandemic years. It’s format, which allows only a few to join, brings the journalists to solve and perform challenges that are not ordinary.

Always, that starts with a long drive to appreciate what Toyota Motor Philippines is known for – reliable and well-designed vehicles. Each year, the vehicles are a mix of what’s new, the bestsellers, and the classic.

Last week, in Road Trek 18, there were nine Toyota vehicles for the 170-km drive around northern Aklan, swinging into the town of Pandan, Antique. The vehicles were hybrids, reflecting the today’s climate-friendly technology – the Corolla Altis GR-S HEV, Camry HEV, Zenix HEV, Corolla Cross G HEV, Corolla Cross GR-S HEV, Alphard HEV, Yaris Cross HEV, RAV 4 HEV. A gasoline-powered Zenix 5 was also part of the media convoy. Two vans – the Hiace and Hilux GR-S – and the Veloz joined the convoy as support vehicles.
The games began at Pit Stop No. 1, while we were having a heavy brunch of Pinoy cuisine. That’s how efficient the organizers were, nothing was going to get in the way of rolling out Road Trek 18!

The games began with the challenge to find the other members of your team. Each was given a sealed envelope which contained a photo card of a Toyota vehicle. The challenge: Go and look for others with photo cards of the same vehicle. That was no challenge for the motoring journalists who immediately recognized the different models through the years and quickly found their teammates. (My team was composed of Fhort Manahan (Zigwheels/Carmudi Philippines), Jenny Pineda (Sunshine TV), Marnie Manicad (Turbo Zone), and me.)
In another game, this time at the Toyota Aklan showroom, our knowledge of Toyota services was tested. One question that Fhort remembers was on the advantages of T-Sure, Toyota’s used car selling program.

I asked Road Trek “alumni” or those who have joined many times the best challenge they still remember.

Tessa Salazar, seasoned motoring writer for Inquirer whose advocacy website – TessDrive – is a popular site, said: ‘My favorite Road Trek challenge was making chocolates at Malagos Chocolate Museum. We learned how to make our own Malagos delicacy, pouring melted chocolate into the molds, sprinkling walnuts and pistachios here and there. This naughty newbie “employee” occasionally licked off some spillover chocolate, making sure the boss wasn’t looking, haha! I had so much fun, I forgot it was a challenge.

“I completely enjoyed the experience, and learned new things as we walked around the cacao farm, ate the fruits, bit the seeds, and nibbled on premium raw cacao. It reminded me of my mom when the two of us roamed among the cacao trees in our hometown in Bohol when I was a child.”

Jenny Pineda has many favorite challenges, and rightly so as she has been in the champion team several times. In the Road Trek in Negros, Jenny relates of the fun in taking out live crabs and transferring then into a pail, and loading as many sugarcanes into the Innova.

Al Mendoza, who said he only missed one Road Trek, remembers this: “The first El Nido trip in 2008 takes the cake for me simply because Chief Organizer Danny “Sir John” Isla made the Road Trek that year as “The Magical Mystery Tour”—a takeaway of the Beatles blockbuster album of the same title. I’m a Beatlemaniac so my bias for it is obvious?”

I’ve missed two or three Road Treks and remember many challenges that we often talk about when we are relaxing at a luxury hotel or resort somewhere in one of our islands. The first Road Trek will of course also stay in the minds of those who joined. It was a drive from Iloilo to Caticlan, and we celebrated at Boracay, the same island where the recent Road Trek 18 ended.

The Road Trek that still sits in my mind as a “badge of adventure” was the one in Cagayan de Oro where 10 Toyota Innovas with huge water rafts tied on their roofs met us at the airport and brought us to the white water rafting experience! That was extremely exciting!

The most endearing part of Road Trek though is the time after the challenges, when we all indulge in conversation, and strengthen friendships. We felt important, that busy executives, led by TMP President Masando Hashimoto, took time to have fun and conversation with us, on anything even topics unrelated to motoring.

We felt honored that long-time friends who have been in many Road Trek events –Jose Maria Atienza, Sherwin Chua-Lim, Josephine Villanueva, Elijah Sue Marcial, and Elvin Luciano– were there too. It was a big plus to have Andy Ty in the group; his youth, pleasant aura , and graciousness sprinkled a lot of charm on the events, especially at the sunset cruise.
Congratulations to the PR Team who made sure all the details ran efficiently –Mixie Flavier, Aries Alconaba, Allana Rufo and Luigi Bautista.

Looking forward to Road Trek 19!