"I'm in the coolest driver's high..."

"I'm in the coolest driver's high..."

The Barclays summer outing is less than a week away, but I guess I got too excited about the prospect of a long drive to Subic and testing my Jazz's ultimate fuel economy. I also wanted to see if I had it in me to drive for an extended period of time.

So, purely on a whim, this sweltering Sunday afternoon I decided to leave Market! Market! and drive headlong to my dad's hometown of Baliwag, Bulacan...as a dress rehearsal for Subic.

I filled up my gas tank at Petron C5 where I learned my city driving the past week returned a rather pathetic 11.2 km/L. No matter, I thought. I will better this today.

Off I went, overtaking cars on C5 and EDSA on the way to the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX). This was my first time to use this road after its rehabilitation a few years ago. I paid a rather hefty PhP70 on one-way toll, but it was obvious where your money went. The NLEX is now a smooth, wide traffic-free ribbon of tarmac that's reminiscent of the better US freeways. As not too many people were on the northbound NLEX I cruised at a steady 100 km/h, with a few overtaking spurts.

I got off at the Sta. Rita exit, then navigated the long roads going to Plaridel, Bustos and finally Baliwag town proper. Along the way I overtook a lot of slower traffic and motorcycles, making sure that I kept the L13A3 engine spinning close to its 2800 RPM torque peak---uncharacteristically low-stressed for a Honda.

When I got to the Baliwag glorietta, I turned back and did the same thing going southbound. This time, however, I piled on more pressure on the throttle as I went down NLEX at 120 km/h with more aggressive overtaking at 5000 RPM. I did the same thing on EDSA and C5, leaving other cars in my dust.

I felt good during the four-hour drive. Despite the oppressive heat which my aircon struggled to banish, it felt really good just letting the kilometers roll by with me all by myself. This was me driving just for the fun of it, searching for what L'Arc~en~Ciel call the "driver's high." I was literally just driving my recent problems away.

Pulling up at the Petron station along Dona Soledad Ave., I noticed the fuel needle had barely moved from the "F" position despite my hard driving over 141.8 kilometers. I had a fillup of 93-octane fuel again. Barely a minute after putting the nozzle in, the pump had stopped after 5.06 liters.

Do the math and you'll see my Jazz returned a truly phenomenal 28.024 km/L.

This was better than my wildest dreams. It's easily more than double my city driving figure, and proved that despite my driving style, the Jazz is a supreme champion of fuel economy. It also pointed to the realization that maybe my pathetic city driving economy isn't just a function of my driving: it's also due to the heavy traffic on weeknights and the relative brevity of my daily commute.

While I thoroughly enjoyed today's endeavor, I also realize getting that driver's high is quite expensive. Notwithstanding the PhP140 I plunked down on toll fees, I also spent PhP1100 on the two fillups today---although the last one worth 5.06 liters cost just PhP190.