By Relly Carpio
INQUIRER.net

THE MINUTE you get a little interest in street racing, be it the legal or the illegal, you almost immediately hear of street racing gangs. But have you ever heard of virtual street racing gangs?

Meet Team C.R.o.W., which stands for Certified Racers of Wangan. Each member is an advocate of NAMCO’s arcade racing game Maximum Tune, now in its third incarnation. You see them mostly in Glorietta 4’s Timezone, playing their favorite arcade game Maximum Tune. And unless you watch them playing the game, you wouldn’t recognize them from the regular patrons.

“We have been playing for seven years now as a group,” relates mild-mannered team leader Ricci Salvador. “We founded Team C.R.o.W. around February last year.” According to Salvador, the team currently has 22 members, with ages ranging from 11 to 30-plus. “We’re a pretty well-rounded group, and try to keep it that way.”

Here’s a photo of Team C.R.o.W members (l-r) Edward Blanza, Dan Salvador, Josh Sargen and Kiko Jopillo with team leader Ricci Salvador.

Team C.R.o.W. has members from the various other arcades which also have the Maximum Tune 3 machines. “We have members from the Promenade, Greenhills, Alabang, and others. Basta may Maximum Tune doon, may members kami. But we mostly gather here in G4, especially pag weekends,” Ricci said.

According to Ricci they have a pretty strict screening process, “Ayaw kasi namin nung mga mayayabang na members eh. Hindi iyung porke, member ka na ng team eh akala mo kung sino ka na. We want members who will advocate the game, not be bullies who will pick on the newer players.”

According to Ricci, there are three ways to get into Team C.R.o.W.

“You either win in a 1-on-1 battle with me or Dan a.k.a. Shey (more on him later), or win a 4-way battle with three other team members three times in a row, or they pick a map and beat me and Shey together. But skill is only 30 percent of our criteria, 70 percent is attitude. Magaling ka nga, pero yabang ka naman, wag na lang.”

“Shey” is Dan Salvador (no relation to Ricci). He is considered by Team C.R.o.W. as their star player, though he says that it’s Ricci who is the star player. “Hindi ako pinakamagaling, siya (Ricci). Siya nagturo sa akin eh,” Dan whispered.

Ricci denies this and says it’s Dan. But if we were to put it to a vote, the other team members present at the interview agree with Ricci. It is Dan who is the man. With almost 10,000 stars (9,804 at the time of this interview) under his belt, each star representing one defeated racer, even hackenslash would have to agree.

Team C.R.o.W. has also gathered for Christmas parties. They had a Holy Week outing/team building activity and have another one planned this year.

“Our team doesn’t want to just build racing skills, but we also want to develop personality,” said Ricci. Last year, they had Wangan racers from Singapore and Japan visit the Philippines and play with them.

As for future plans? “We have a website, but it’s still under construction. Also we’re focused right now on practicing for the coming Manila Cup Challenge that was organized by Timezone,” Ricci said.