THE Jeep Club Philippines held the first national Jeep Jamboree in Pampanga over the weekend.
The National Jeep Jamboree was a three-day event, which kicked off on February 22 at the LausGroup Event Centre and proceeded to the Jeep Clark Showroom in Clark Freeport where they had a meet and greet session.
On the second day, the participants had a flag off at 1 p.m., the start of a trail from Sacobia Bridge to Barangay Calapi for the gift giving at 1:30 p.m., then to Sityo Puning at 3 p.m. Set-up at the camping site followed at 4:00 pm and a fellowship in the evening.
On the third day, they had a trail from Puning to Sacobia Bridge at 8:30 a.m. and started the competition at 9:30 a.m.
The first competition was a two man team extreme 4x4 challenge in which two Jeeps joined as a one-time team. Each Jeep must be with the driver and co-driver with helmets and must be complete with recovery gears like winch, hi-lift, straps, and more. Two Jeeps will serve as partners at all times including the recovery of a partner during the race and must come together to the finish line.
The second competition was a time trial 4x4 challenge for stock Jeeps in which the fastest Jeep to complete the trail won.
The winners were Michael Pagauitan and Mark Joseph Santiago (first place), Austin Cheng and Gilbert Jordan (second place), and John Go and Walter Zamora (third place) for the first challenge; Walter Zamora (first place), Enrico Revilla (second place), and Jayvee Alcoriza (third place) for the second challenge; and Jim Punzalan (first place), Michael Pagauitan (second place), and Mark Joseph Santiago (third place) for the third challenge.
Other special awards went to Rommel Juan of Jeep JK for being the best 4x4 overland set-up winner, Michael Pagauitan of Jeep JK for scoring the best 4x4 extreme overland set-up title, Jim Punzalan of Jeep JK for landing as the best 4x4 extreme set-up winner, and Gilbert Jordan of Jeep Grand Cherokee for grabbing the best of show title.
Isaganie Revilla, Jeep Club Philippines president, disclosed that the Jeep Jamboree is more of a gathering of Jeep enthusiasts in the Philippines, and that’s the reason why they made the Jeep Jamboree like the set-up in the United States.
“I want to say thank you to the Jeep Jamboree registrants for coming to our event. I hope that in the future, our members’ numbers will increase so that they would experience the beauty of using Jeeps especially the Wrangler because it is like a toy,” Revilla said.
Jeep Jamboree director Atkimson Kua noted that they have people coming from provinces and that they have invited them to come over to talk about set-up experiences and have fun.
“We have members around 120 Jeep owners, but we’re looking at 75 who will participate in the Jeep Jamboree. We have a competition for a tag team and it will create camaraderie so that nobody will be left behind. We have people coming from Cavite, Manila, Bicol, Iloilo, Cebu, and Baguio—For the jamboree, the only requirement here is you just have to own a Jeep,” Kua said.