Sleepless in Singapore: MediaCorp Subaru Impreza WRX Challenge Asian Face-off

MANILA, Philippines - EDITOR’S NOTE: As exclusive print partner to the recently concluded Subaru Impreza Challenge, we bring you yet again another exclusive story where we followed the ups and downs of Team Philippines – who put up a valiant effort but failed to bring home the big bacon, a brand new Subaru Impreza WRX sedan. We sent adventure savvy Ayvi Nicolas to Singapore to cover the blow-by-blow last week. Here’s her account of how the 2009 Subaru Impreza Challenge went down…

Charles Lindbergh went down in history as the guy who did the first solo flight across the Atlantic. People thought he was crazy. But he proved them wrong though not without much difficulty. His main enemy? Sleepiness.

In the book Counting Sheep by Paul Martin, Lindbergh is quoted to have described his lack of sleep as: My eyes feel dry and hard as stones... The lids pull down with pounds of weight against their muscles. Keeping them open is like holding arms outstretched without support... My mind clicks on and off, as though attached to an electric switch... My whole body argues dully that nothing, nothing life can attain, is quite so desirable as sleep. That is the historical Lindbergh after about 9 hours into his flight. Imagine what three days of no sleep would be like.

Keeping his wits about him through three days of no sleep is how 40-year old Singaporean Mohamed Anuar took his Impreza WRX away from the clutches of 399 other challengers. He clocked in 77 hours and 43 minutes and outlasted challengers from China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines.

The final minutes of a challenge like this is always heartbreaking as it comes down to two contestants. The entire three days have mostly been about who could last the longest while the last few minutes boils down to who’s going to crack. And when it’s an endurance test to the finish, the one who fails is not the one who faints, succumbs to muscle cramps, or like most of the challengers in the past days walks off and surrenders his or her contestant badge number. In the final minutes of a challenge like this, the one who loses is the one who ever so slightly moves his or her hand outside the boundaries of the handprint decal. Lift a finger, twitch a thumb and it’s game over. The difference between the one who gets the car and the one who doesn’t is more or less a centimeter.

This is a game that requires so little to qualify, takes all you’ve got to win, but only takes a split second to lose.

To be eligible to join the Subaru Impreza Challenge Manila Leg, you got to be at least 21 years old, a passport holder and in good health condition. The minimum requirements sound pretty simple enough. Randomly accost anyone on the street and you got yourself a contestant right then and there. In fact, a couple of the 10 Filipino challengers that qualified for the MediaCorp Subaru Impreza WRX Challenge Asian Face-off in Singapore were accidental challengers and pushovers for the fortunate kind of peer pressure. They were only there to cheer for a friend but ended up cajoled to joining and making it to the top ten wearing their office clothes. The sheer novelty of the experience can bring a challenger to make it through the eliminations but in Singapore only the driven, single-minded and strong-willed outlast everybody else.

The Philippine STAR was the only broadsheet newspaper in the Philippines that was invited to cover this grueling challenge. In that tiny plaza of Ngee Ann City 400 people fought off sleep and run mental marathons with finish lines that are only apparent to themselves and The STAR was there to cheer them on.

Consider what it takes to be a challenger for the MediaCorp Subaru WRX Challenge. You have to place your right hand firm and flat on a handprint decal. You have to share one car with 39 other people. You have to stand where you are with your right hand never moving in sun or rain, day or night. A countdown in big numbers is flashed before your very eyes, making its slow tick towards the most awaited five-minute break every six hours. And in mere five minutes you get to do whatever you need to do live – eat, drink, go to the toilet, sit, lie down, have a massage – to get you through another one of the longest six hours of non-life. The next few days would be made up of a sleep-deprived series of six-hour tests of endurance and 5-minute tests of will-power. More contestants drop out during the five-minute breaks than at any other time. Mainly in avoidance of the walk of shame from the car to the stage but mostly because of the dread of another 6 hours of mental torture.

The Impreza Challenge was as good a spectator sport as any. It’s not so much as cheering for points earned, or awesome display of skill, or even the rush of watching an opponent get thrashed. It’s more like standing near the finish line of a marathon, a triathlon or an eco-challenge and cheering for any stranger who crosses it. In any endurance sport, the athletes who get the loudest cheers are the ones who finish the race despite the fact that all odds are stacked against them.

The last Pinoy standing came in a 5-foot, 90-pound frame. Apple Joy Lee Balibado started out the grueling challenge on tiptoe having had the misfortune of drawing the decal that’s on the top right of the windshield. She spent a good several hours perched on the stacked slippers of her fellow Pinoy challengers with her right hand still practically raised above her head, arm painfully twisted. Apple Balibado won S$1,000 as country winner for the Philippines with a time of 53 hours and 33 contestants remaining. It proves to be that Apple was built for this kind of thing. A mere few minutes after her hand moved that caused her the game, she was already giving interviews and raring to go explore Orchard Road. There’s no telling what she and the other Team Philippines members Relly Reposo, Mark Llauder, Ray Joseph Pizana, Raimond dela Torre, Daryl Sarno, Danilo Biadog, Joseph Brian Gelvez, and Chrizar Mallari could achieve the next time around.

In Singapore, you can have your very own Subaru Impreza WRX Sedan 2.5MT if you can hold on to it for more than three days without sleeping. Keeping awake is not easy just as Charles Lindbergh describes such an ordeal: Every cell of my being is on strike, sulking in protest, claiming that nothing, nothing in the world, could be worth such an effort...

Come to think of it, a Subaru Impreza WRX may be exactly what’s worth such an effort.