The Macau grand prix museum

Today is a Red-Letter Day for our talkshow on Straight from the Sky as we celebrate another milestone, our 9th year on SkyCable Television. As in tradition, we don’t give you a talkshow on our anniversary week. Instead, we will present a collage of the 472 shows that we’ve given our Cebuano audience since that last week of March 2000 when we had then newly-appointed Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Head, Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas in the only interview we did in Manila.

That our show Straight from the Sky has the distinction of being the “Longest running talkshow in Cebu” is something I attribute to our viewership, you folks who always find time to watch our shows. How time flies indeed. When we started nine years ago, industry insiders warned me that talkshows in Cebu won’t last, so the prognosis for our show was something like, “we’d be lucky if we last for six months.” I never took it against those friends who told me this. They were real friends who gave a warning that no talkshow in Cebu ever survived for any given period, even if they belonged to the big nationwide networks.

As it’s our 9th year, we’re we will be showing you the best of the best shows we’ve had. But on our way to the 10th Anniversary for Straight from the Sky, we are giving you a big bang next week, two shows on our recent trip to Macau. Part One on the historic and cultural side of Macau and for Part Two, the Macau that has grown and developed today, especially with the opening of the big hotel chains from Las Vegas, like the Wynn’s, MGM Grand and the Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel, the biggest casino-hotel complex in the world!

So watch all of this next week, after our anniversary presentation tonight on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8pm.. Finally, we give thanks to SkyCable for their confidence in having this show for all these nine years, our sponsors and above all, to you, our televiewers.

* * *

We got back to Cebu last Friday evening from our very first trip to Macau. We’d like to express our thanks to Ms. Narzalina Lim of the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) for the invitation to do a tv show in Macau, which is a first in Cebu television. It was my first time in Macau. Years ago, long before Las Vegas decided to invest in Macau, I already wanted to go there for one reason: The Macau Grand Prix. That’s because except for Japan, Macau was the only place they were racing in Asia.

So when Mr. Joäo Sales asked me if I would like to tape part of my show at the Macau Grand Prix Museum, I instantly agreed. When I got there, I was like a kid lost inside a candy store. But there you can really see a lot of car racing history because the 3.9 mile long Guia Racing Circuit (this is what the Macau Grand Prix is really called in Macau. It’s named for the Guia Hill, which is a fortress with a Chapel and a Lighthouse that towers over the city of Macau) began in the early 1950’s. Back then, some parts of the racetrack were unpaved. That’s how crude racing was then.

Those were the Golden days of the British sports cars when Triumph TR2s, Austin Healeys and Jaguars (there were no Japanese cars being raced back then) were the cars they raced. These types of small runabout sports cars have recently made a comeback. The Grand Prix Museum also honored the most famous Filipino car racer of all time, the late Arsenio “Dodjie” Laurel who won the Macau Grand Prix back-to-back in 1962 and 1963. He was truly a superstar in those days. His bust and his Braham racecar were donated by the Laurel Family.

But on that fateful day of Nov.19,1967, Dodjie’s Lotus 41 spun out of control at the Yacht Club Bend, (now known as the Mandarin-Oriental Bend) hit the seawall and crashed and burned. Dodjie was killed instantly. He was the first racer to die during a race in 14-year-old Macau Grand Prix. Even today, racing enthusiasts in Macau still revere Dodjie Laurel as a great friend of Macau and a great Filipino car racer.

This reminded me that the 1st Philippine Grand Prix was held in Cebu. Unfortunately for us Cebuanos, we didn’t do a follow up to that Philippine first because if we did, Cebu would probably be part of the Asian racing circuit today. In the world of car racing, only the Grand Prix of Monaco and Macau are races done within the city streets.

The Macau Grand Prix is also the only racetrack that hosts both car and motorcycle races at the same weekend. I saw the Yamaha motorcycle of Hiroshi Hasegawa on display also at the museum. This should bring a lot of Filipinos to Macau in the next Grand Prix Race this November. That’s for car and bike enthusiasts.