Another dream to chase: VJ Bacungan builds a life around cars

I met Froilan Victor Jr. “VJ” Bacungan during a media drive in Bicol. We were carmates throughout the long trip together with Isuzu executive Joseph Bautista.

During the drive, VJ patiently explained some racing techniques and how I could use them in everyday driving.

VJ was not always as comfortable talking to people as he was during our Bicol drive.

“I was very shy as a kid, often preferring to read books and play video games,” VJ said. “I hardly had any friends and tended to stay away from the spotlight.”

Yet he often joined activities that put him in front of an audience. VJ sang competitively for several years and once had a four-octave soprano range with a whistle register.

He also competed in declamation and interpretative reading and won every year from Prep until he stopped in his second year of high school.

During his early years, his mother listened to him rehearse late at night and corrected everything from his pronunciation to his hand gestures.

At home, however, law was the more familiar profession, and VJ was keen to follow several members of his family into it.

He comes from a family of lawyers and carries the name of his late grandfather, Froilan Bacungan, who taught Labor and Constitutional law for many years and served as University of the Philippines’ (UP) Law dean from 1978 to 1983.

VJ saw how highly people regarded his grandfather when Dean Bacungan attended his induction into an international honor society in college.

“Throngs of academic luminaries rushed out to greet and socialize with him,” VJ recalled. “I think that is the sort of following you get from not only being exceedingly brilliant in your profession, but also from being good to people.”

VJ is one of several male relatives named after his grandfather, and the name “carries a lot of weight,” he said.

He enrolled in journalism at UP Diliman as preparation for law school, although he had never written for the school paper and did not write as a hobby.

He graduated cum laude in 2015 and entered the UP College of Law, exactly as he had planned for much of his life. Within one semester, however, he realized that law school was not for him.

Things got worse midway through the semester when VJ contracted dengue and spent his 22nd birthday attached to an intravenous line.

“The experience thoroughly drained me and I decided to carry on with my journalism career,” he said.

Even after more than a decade in the profession, VJ insists that he is not an avid writer. I find that difficult to believe whenever I read his work.

When Dean Bacungan died in 2014, VJ inherited his 1995 Toyota Corolla XL. It was in “so-so condition,” as he put it, with a carburetor that guzzled fuel and a transmission that sometimes jumped out of gear.

“Even after he left us, Lolo was still teaching me because restoring his car greatly deepened my love for cars, along with helping me realize that there is value in old things,” he said.

Despite the Corolla’s “pawis” steering and manual windows, VJ enjoyed owning it enough to choose a red Vios as his first brand-new car.

Racing was a dream VJ had held since childhood, and he finally began competing in 2017 under rally veteran Coach Vip Isada.

The following year, he entered and won his first gymkhana, a timed driving competition that tests car control on a course laid out with traffic cones. VJ thought the victory might have been beginner’s luck, so he joined the next event and won again.

The red Vios helped him win three overall championships and later train other drivers.

VJ started racing at 24, so when he later started Gymkhana Pilipinas (GP), a grassroots motorsport event and organization that focuses on precision driving, car control, and time trials, he wanted to give newcomers a faster and easier way into the sport.

“Gymkhana Pilipinas is proof that when dreams don’t come true, there is always another dream to chase,” VJ said.

“My ultimate goal is to help people drive better than me,” he said, before lowering the bar himself with the words, “not a terribly high bar, to be honest.”

The joke is typical VJ, but running Gymkhana Pilipinas takes a great deal of work.

“Perhaps the hardest part of running GP is that I actually still do a lot of the work myself,” he said, although he is quick to add that the series would collapse without the former racing students who now work as officials.

VJ spent two years as marketing director of the Philippine Autocross Championship Series under its late founder and race director, Danny “Mang Dan” Santiago.

“I also credit him for teaching me, and many others, about what racing should be and shouldn’t be,” VJ said.

VJ describes Gymkhana Pilipinas as “more like a passion project than actual work” because it allows people to enjoy driving while helping them become better drivers.

“When that passion runs out, then it would be time for me to move on,” he said. “But until then, we will be here for anyone who wants to learn to drive fast in a safe environment, surrounded by good-natured and passionate people.”

The shy kid never became the lawyer he had expected to be. VJ pursued another dream, but he did not forget the example Dean Bacungan left. Knowledge earns attention, but being good to people earns respect.

Happy birthday, VJ. Thank you for all the lessons in Bicol.