Mediacorp Subaru Impreza WRX Challenge

Last Palm Standing - Mediacorp Subaru Car Challenge (Chinese 中文: 比耐力贏轎車比賽) is an annual challenge organised by Mediacorp Radio and Subaru in Singapore. It has been held at the open air space in front of Ngee Ann City since its inauguration on 17 November 2002.

Format

Contestants are required to reach the competition site at 7 am of the competition day for registration, which is always on a Saturday. The competition then begins later at 1 pm, and contestant's hands are assigned to one of the car positions by random and s/he will attempt to outlast by holding on to the car for as long as possible. Contestants are eliminated from the competition once the hand, whether deliberately or accidentally, was lifted off from the car; but they are allowed to release their hand during the five-minute break (occurring every six hours), or any temporary suspension in the event of unfavourable weather (i.e. lightning/thunderstorm) per safety reasons. Contestants can also be disqualified if they were caught breaching rules, such as violence, cheating, or using any communication devices during the challenge. The competition continues until only one contestant was left standing, which will then be crowned the winner and the Subaru Impreza prize.

In the first six years of competition, only Singaporean contestants are eligible to compete. Since 2008, as part of the "Regional Face-off" (2009 as "Asian Face-off") theme, international contestants are made eligible to participate, starting from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand, followed by China, Indonesia and Taiwan in 2009, Vietnam in 2010, Cambodia and Macau in 2011.

Highlights

In 2005, the competition was called the "Subaru Team Challenge", as it was a competition by teams consisting of two people per team; if either team member releases their hand, the team would be eliminated. The last team standing was awarded the car, one per each team member. One of the team members of the runner-up team would later go to win the competition the following year in 2006, marking the first returning contestant to win the competition.

In 2007, the competition was called the "Battle of the Sexes", featuring male and female contestants competing for the car; it was the only competition to date (excluding teams or regional winners) to have co-winners.

2008 was the first competition to feature international contestants from the Southeast Asian region, before expanding to Asia on the following year. 2008 marks the first time in the Challenge's history the competition have to be temporarily suspended due to unfavourable weather; a lightning strike occurred on Sunday morning at 5:07 am and was suspended for 46 minutes.

In 2012, as a commemoration to the 11th edition of Subaru Challenge, 11 seconds are added to the usual five-minute evening break at 7 pm. The last eleven contestants would be awarded a "Wild Card", allowing contestants to select from an array of items or taking an extra break. Due to the extreme afternoon heat, an additional break was called at 4 pm on the Sunday/Monday of the competition. 2012 saw its first non-Singaporean contestant to finish in the top three.

2013 marked the second time a competition was temporarily suspended due to weather, which lasted for 70 minutes starting at 4:30 pm on Monday.

In 2014, public played an online game to stand a chance to win an additional break to be given to their contestant of choice. Top ten players with the highest scores (after each Reward round) was awarded the same prize. Since this edition, the last 15 contestants were also entitled an extra break at 10 am, 4 pm and 10 pm. The winning contestant, at 82 hours and 16 minutes of endurance, set the current record of time a contestant was able to outlast.

In 2015, in commemoration with the golden jubilee, a Certificate of Entitlement was also awarded to the winner, making it the most expensive grand prize to be won at around S$115,000; if the winner is not Singaporean, the COE would not be awarded. 2015 marked the first time a non-Singaporean (from Vietnam) had won the competition, and was also the first time the competition was sheltered in a tent with standby air-conditioning, due to the Southeast Asian haze.

2016 returned the competition of "The Asian Face-off" with a S$69,600 Subaru XV 1.6 I-S awarded to the winning contestant out of 400 participated (300 were Singaporeans, 10 from each one of eight participating Asian countries, and 20 contestants selected from the Motor Image's "I LOVE SUBARU" and "DUO Rewards" fan Facebook page). The COE bonus prize seen in the 2015 edition was absent until 2018.

2017 saw the longest suspension of competition in history which lasted 1 hour 45 minutes, when thunderstorms happened on Monday 7:30 pm.

2018 saw the return of the COE bonus, which was awarded to the winning contestant who could surpass the imposed current record (82 hours and 16 minutes). Contestants are also awarded a $100 bonus for passing certain milestones at 48, 60 and 72 hours. In addition to guest performances (including SPOP Sing! semi-finalists), phone-call donations are also featured in the series as well. The competition also saw three suspensions, the most for any competition in history, all due to wet weather.

2019's installment, dubbed Last Palm Standing, also saw the return of bonus milestones and COE award for the last racer surpassing the current record timing. A pre-competition roadshow was held at Cathay Cineleisure on 31 August, which also allow competitors to register for the event.

Both the 2020 and 2021 installment were the first two installments to be cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Winners and runners-up

Year	Date	Overall Winner(s)	Time Taken	First Runner-up	Second Runner-up
2002	17 November 2002	Mohhamad Amat	61 hours 55 minutes	Zech Leong
2003	1 November 2003	David Gerard Felix	66 hours 52 minutes	Cindy Png Siew Guat
2004	30 October 2004	Ian Lee	74 hours 59 minutes	Cheang Pui San
2005	5 November 2005	Koh Meng Khoon & Lung Wen Jie	64 hours 31 minutes	Zac Ng & Alex Koh
2006	4 November 2006	Alex Koh	73 hours 56 minutes	Johnny Chua
2007	3 November 2007	Sandra Yeow (female) Kevin Lee1 (male)	77 hours 13 minutes 76 hours 1	Phua Lee Lian (female) Abdul Hamid Jonid (male)
2008	8 November 2008	George Lee	81 hours 32 minutes	Mary Tan	Ong Chai Har Rose
2009	31 October 2009	Mohd Anuar	77 hours 43 minutes	Santozkumar Poonsolai	Yeo Shu Qing
2010	30 October 2010	Aloysius Lim Xiang Kwan	75 hours 17 minutes	Abdul Hamid Jonid	Analiza Mokhtar
2011	29 October 2011	Chong Kait Chi	75 hours 36 minutes	Tilani Haresh Lachmandas	Abdul Hamid Jonid
2012	27 October 2012	Tholmas Gan Yu Shen	78 hours 30 minutes	G Jaishanker	Samach Tepsen
2013	26 October 2013	Yusman Wright	75 hours 1 minute	Sunawr Ali	Alex Neblasca
2014	8 November 2014	G Jaishanker	82 hours 16 minutes	Analiza Mokhtar	Sunawr Ali
2015	31 October 2015	Nguyen Phuoc Huynh	77 hours 58 minutes	Tan Hong Sheng	Yip Yu Wai
2016	5 November 2016	Sunawr Ali	75 hours 58 minutes	Analiza Mokhtar	Alex Neblasca
2017	28 October 2017	Abdul Hamid Jonid	74 hours 15 minutes	Luan Tu Lang	Filmark Ramos Bernante
2018	27 October 2018	Analiza Mokhtar	75 hours 17 minutes 58 seconds	Phraitoon Sanguannam	Mazlinah Ahmad
2019	2 November 2019	Siripong Toosadee	76 hours 55 minutes 5 seconds	Luu Van Quoc	Mazlinah Ahmad
2020	Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
2021
2022
2023	4 Nov 2023	Mr. Chan Kok Seng	elimination game	Nguyen Doan Tho	Do Dang Hoang Trung

^Note : Lee was declared the winner of the men's category at 73 hours 55 minutes, and finished in fourth place overall.

Market Team Winner and Asian Winner

Since 2009, the market whose participants have the longest combined standing time will be awarded the Market Team Winner title along with a cash prize of S$10,000, to be equally divided among the team. An additional S$5,000 was awarded to the last male and female contestant standing, and S$1,000 for the last contestant standing representing in each country.

Year	Market Team Winner	Asian Winner
2009	Thailand
2010	Philippines	Thailand
2011	Thailand	Philippines
2012	Vietnam	Thailand
2013	Philippines
2014	Thailand	Malaysia
2015	Malaysia
2016	Philippines
2017	Vietnam
2018	Thailand
2019	Philippines	Thailand
2020	Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
2021

External links

• Subaru Impreza WRX Challenge 2004
• Subaru WRX Challenge 2006
• MediaCorp Subaru Impreza Challenge 2007
• MediaCorp Subaru Impreza Challenge 2008
• MediaCorp Subaru Impreza Challenge 2009
• MediaCorp Subaru Impreza Challenge 2010
• MediaCorp Subaru Impreza Challenge 2011
• MediaCorp Subaru Impreza Challenge 2012
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