It was a nice, warm and sunny Summer day in Manila for the Philippine Off-Road Nationals in the E-Buggy Class held at the CV Off-Road Track. The early benchmark in qualifying was posted by Team-C racer Garet Santayana who was almost assured of pole position until a late charge by Team Losi Racing driver Emer Agero who snatched the TQ spot by posting some blistering final laps on his last run. The top 5 on the grid after qualifying were TQ Emer Agero (Losi), 2nd Garet Santayana (Team-C), 3rd Mike Ang (AE), 4th Ish Montilla (AE) and 5th Joseph Salcedo (Xray).
The 1st A-main was a battle between the top 3 protagonists. Exchanging leads with one another until Losi’s Emer Agero experienced some bobbles which opened the door for Mike Ang and his Factory Team RC8.2 and Team C’s Garet Santayana to continue the fight to the finish. It was a true test of nerves with some great wheel to wheel action on the dirt and in the air. Mike Ang then managed to pull away at the end for a well earned A-1 win.
A-2 began with an early escape by Emer Agero with Mike Ang having some traction issues. This allowed Garet Snatayan to do most of the serious chasing. Toward the end of the 2nd Main a hard charging Ish Montilla caught up and was in hot in pursuit of Garet’s 2nd spot. When time expired, Emer got the easy win with Garet taking 2nd by just 2 seconds over AE’s Ish Montilla.
The build-up and excitement for the 3rd and final Main was palpable throughout the entire Pit Area. The top 3 each had a realistic and legitimate shot in taking home the Championship. The 3rd A-main went off with a clean start from all the racers. Emer, Garet Mike and a few others formed an early train. The top 3 then slowly broke away from the group until Mike Ang crashed leaving Emer Agero and Garet Santayana up front. Garet was hounding Emer throughout most of the race. Emer managed a little bit of a gap but Garet was not going to be denied. At one point, when Garet was practically side by side with Emer, he bobbled and crashed. Amazingly, with a minute remaining and a lot of patience, Garet managed to pass Emer cleanly entering the back straight on the last lap. Garet secured his hard fought win and we now had 3 different winners!
RC Scoring Pro was left to compute and judge the tie break as the printout would be determine the winner. A bunch of racers crowded the driver’s stand for the and many eyes were glued to the printer. The Final Results showed Losi’s Emer Agero 1st, Team C’s Garet Santayana 2nd (both equal on points) with AE’s Mike Ang awarded 3rd and the final podium spot. It was a thrilling end to a perfect day of Off-Road racing.
Thanks to Ish Montilla for the report.
