TOYOTA GR PH CUP
When you bring the races closer to the people, literally and figuratively, they’ll be more likely to join in. This was what Toyota Motor Philippines really had in mind when the TMP team decided to hold Leg 2 of its Toyota Gazoo Racing Philippine Cup at Villar City, a humongous residential and commercial development straddling the cities of Bacoor and Imus in Cavite Province, starting May 23 and lasting the entire weekend up to May 25.
And TMP wasn’t wrong. On the first race day yesterday, nearly 5,000 adrenaline seekers attended the qualifying races, with a side order of concerts by Parokya ni Edgar, Rico Blanco, and Never The Strangers to boot. And you know these people really committed, because despite the scorching heat of a cloudless day, they merely held up their portable electric fans on one hand and their digital recording gadgets in another, and watched with animated fascination as the racers zoomed past the straightaways, or their favorite band sung their childhood anthems.
In contrast, Leg 1 of the TGR Philippine Cup held last March at the Clark International Speedway registered just about 3,000 people on its first racing day.
Frankly, I didn’t expect TMP to tap into a real estate development not really known in motorsport. But trust an auto company with enough resources and a wide enough support network to pull off what I think is an even more spectacular feat than any race winner will achieve this weekend: Create an entire racing environment out of literally a big, bare plot of land (and some roads here and there).
Villar Avenue, from its very entrance at the intersection of Daang Hari, was converted to a 2.4-km two-way race track deceptively designed with tight turns, and spiced up by chicanes. The wheel-to-wheel action saw several minor collisions and close calls. Showing how deceptively treacherous this concreted street track is compared to the asphalted race course of the CIS circuit, one race car which miscalculated a turn collided right smack into a barrier and flipped, totaling the front and engine bay.
I was onsite yesterday and saw right away the crowds building up as early as the opening ceremony mid-morning. When Parokya ni Edgar performed during the blistering noontime heat, the crowd grew much larger, seemingly oblivious to the heat. As usual, lead singer Chito Miranda was his usual wisecracking self.
Toyota Gazoo Racing has built a sense of excitement and attracted crowds. It has also boosted local businesses in the area. One can say this race—organized by professional racers and sanctioned by Automobile Association Philippines— energizes the community, as well as its people.
But if you ask the people at TMP, they’ll insist that they’re all just about the races. The economic flurry that happens along with it may be just an (unintended?) bonus.
“Organizing the race was never about promoting a specific city or development. It has never been part of our main goal. Maybe as a result that’s what’s happening. It’s really hard to conclude on our part because we don’t monitor such improvements,” clarified Sherwin Chua-Lim, Toyota Motor Philippines’ senior vice president for marketing division.
Proving that the TGR Philippine Cup is a boom to the local economy may take a bit longer, though. The next leg will be back to the purpose-built racetrack of the Clark International Speedway. Perhaps, in the next street race that TMP will hold for its future TGR legs in another part of this country, we may already have a clearer picture.
For now, let’s just train our sights at each hair-raising turn that this Leg 2 dishes out for its brave racers.
