Motor Image Pilipinas, Inc. the Philippine distributor for Subaruvehicles finished the Manila Leg of the “Subaru Impreza Challenge” Philippine edition after holding two events in Cebu and Davao. It is the first time since 2008 that this event was held in multiple cities. Motor Image held the Manila Leg at Bonifacio High Street last weekend to get the top seven winners who will join the winners from the Cebu and Davao legs. With over two hundred participants, only two event veterans qualified out of the seven winners in the Manila Leg. This included Alex Neblasca, who was last year’s Country Winner in the Singapore finals and Robert Ocampo who had previously joined the challenge also. Other winners in the Manila Leg include – Edward Vargas, Edd Rael Marcos, Carlos Antonio Creencia, Ariel Frayna and Juan Furiscal, Jr.
Alex Neblasca is a 31 year old auto detailer and a four-time veteran to this event already. Last year, he clocked over 65 hours to win the country winner category. Another veteran, Robert Ocampo, is a 30 year old driver who has joined the event for the 3rd time and had consistently been in the event’s top 10 finishers.
What is different in this year’s Subaru Impreza Challenge (Philippine edition) is it now has four different locations, starting with Cebu City last August 10, then in Davao City last August 17 and September 7 in Manila. The last leg will be held in Pampanga on September 14. The original schedule for Pampanga was August 24 but had to be rescheduled due to Typhoon Maring. The top ten finishers will represent the Philippines in the Asian Finals in Singapore on October 26 to 29. The Pampanga leg this weekend will mark the last leg of the Philippine edition of this year’s challenge. The event will be held at the Marquee Mall, Angeles City, Pampanga.
Aside from its flagship Subaru showrooms in EDSA Greenhills, Motor Image now has 4 additional showrooms nationwide – Global City, Alabang, Pampanga, Cebu, and Davao. The Motor Image Group was established in 1986 and is headquartered in Singapore. Since then, it has put up distributorships and dealership in Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Southern China, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
For over ten years, concept of this endurance event had basically remained unchanged when it was first held in Singapore in 2002 except that it grew in size and became a regional event. Starting with only three cars and 120 contestants in Singapore, this annual event expects to have 400 contestants from Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia aside from contestants from Motor Image’s host country Singapore. The winner last year was 48-year old Tholmas Gan Yu Shen of Singapore, who lasted for 78 hours and 30 minutes to beat 399 other challengers from and took home the grand prize.
The Philippine top 10 challengers get to fly to Singapore on an all-expenses paid trip to compete in the Singapore finals, joining other finalist from nine Asian countries and Singapore contestants with only one prize in mind – a brand new Subaru Impreza 2.0i M/T with a sticker price of Php1,158 million. The specs of the Subara Impreza grand prize varies slightly depending on which country the winner will come from.
Aside from the grand prize, contestants will have the chance to win cash prizes for being the Country Winner (awarded to the last person standing from each country), Asian Winner (the last person standing from all regional countries except Singapore) and a Country Team prize for the longest surviving country (calculated by adding all the individual team members timings together).
The Subaru Impreza Challenge became regional in 2008, when contestants from Hong Kong, Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia joined in to mark the first time the competition went into a regional format, called the “Regional Face Off”. In 2009, China, Taiwan and Indonesia sent their representative to join in the 2009 edition and the challenge was renamed the “Asian Face Off”. Vietnam joined the event in 2010 and in 2011, contestants from Cambodia and Macau are added into the contest. For more information and updates about the Subaru Impreza Challenge, visit I Love Subaru Facebook fan page:www.facebook.com/ILOVESUBARU.
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