Around the world (a bit less) in 90 days (a bit more)

Hello carmrades!

So Carmrade Darren asked to share road tip stories with him. The reason for a separate post and not a comment, well, it is quire a long roadtrip. Probably my longest collection of trips in shortest amount of time filled with crazyness from the time I used to run the Russian Juke R project. I’ll try to include as many details as possible in the short amount of time I have to write this article + I don’t have all the images at hand, maybe something for later. Ok so the main hero is the Russian Juke R built by Shpilli-Villi Engineering.

You may have seen the video above. If not, well watch it. The story is about that car.

After the car was finished and made it’s debut at Russian Moscow unlim 500+ you see above it was time to conquer the Europe and interwebs. I was based in Holland at the time so I arranged quite an interesting programme. Little did I know, the journey would become tens of thousands of km’s/miles longer than expected.

The story starts on 27th of July 2013 when the Juke arrived to Holland (after taking second place in Ukrainian Drag Racing Championship few weeks before) to participate in a trackday on the track of Zandvoort and make first appearance in Western Europe. It was quite fun where we showed the world you can handle the Juke R in the wet on semi slicks no problem.

Here is a video where you may or may not see the drifts.

After that the Juke got some ghetto check ups at my place in Holland and my Pyotr Pig.

Then it was time for a test-drive review by my friends at Autoblog.nl (enable English subtitles!)

Next, the car went to the Nürburgring to our partners for a proper checkup and R&D while I stayed in Holland for other business and waited for the car to come back to me on 14th of August because we had another series of events.

First on the planning was DMPD, one of the most awesome event for modified (show) cars. I am sorry I don’t have any better pics as I said in the intro, feel free to google DMPD :)

The event took place on August 17th 2013 in Ede, Holland. After that we drove to Rotterdam for HUGE and exclusive event of Rotterdam VKV City Racing. Again, little pictures of the actual event at my disposal, but here is a very important picture: first time I’ve met Vaughn Gittin Jr where we’re both chilling with the Juke. Check out my recent interview with him!

Right after the VKV City Racing we left Rotterdam to drive 700 km to French track of Magny-Cours for some hot weather track testing unline the rainy Zandvoort a few weeks before.

Obligatory video

We stayed there for 2 days before driving another 750 km back to Amsterdam to store it at VKV Amsterdam (Holland’s only GTR dealer) for a couple of days before next adventure.

Now, the day is 24th of August 2013. The day the sh!t hit the fan. I picked up the Juke R and had to go to Germany for another event, but decided to stop not far from Amsterdam at my friends DBM Engineering who held JDM BBQ that day. Where a couple of moments later the Juke went 0-140km/h-0 in about 5 seconds.

The “bubble” on the windscreen was made by the co-driver. Him and driver weren’t wearing any seat belts as this was unplanned. It is a mystery both survived and doctors say they probably wouldn’t have if they did wear the 4-point harnesses without obligatory HANS. In that case their necks would have knacked as chips.

According to the planning the car had to go to StickerDUMP where it would get wrapped before proceding back to Moscow for Autumn’s edition of Moscow Unlim 500+, which is our home-based event with lots of potential buyers. We only had 4 problems.

• The event was on 14th of September, exactly 3 weeks from then.
• We had 2.500 km to drive to Moscow
• The car was wrecked and had to be fixed.
• If that wasn’t enough, the car got confiscated by the Dutch police for tech research.

Thanks to contacts within the police the procedure was quicker than usual and the car was out in a week time. Now we had 2 weeks before being in Moscow. It took us about 1 week to restore the dented chassis and gather the necessary parts. After that the DMB Engineering assembled the Juke back together in 2 days and it was 11th of September in the evening we were ready to go Moscow… 48 hours to cover 2.500 km by a bus with heavy Juke in the trailer.

Now, it’s not the average speed you need to worry about. The problem is that you can get into lots of trouble on the EU-Belarus border because the guys there are having a bad day. Let alone when you’re carrying something like a Frankenstein Juke R. We spent about 12 hours at the border where we found some other guys that were heading to Unlim 500+ as well.

Those were the Polish Sportmile 1000 hp Audi RS6. Who gave us a small escort afterwards. Nothing beats RS6 and S8 with police flashlights.

Well, long story short, we made it in EXACTLY 48 hours.

And the next morning the Juke R prototype was reunited with its younger brother “luxury sleeper Juke”

Some dragraces were held that day.

Another car that was recently purchased by the team also made it’s first appearance that made the 2500 hp Saleen S7 disappear in its shadow. The 1JZ Volvo.

Well, the problem was, that on the second day it was raining cats and dogs, so the event got cancelled because this happened and we could not do anything spectacular. Pretty “sad” ending after all the efforts.

If you want more pics, check out the galleries on the Dragtimes website

So I had some rest after that and stayed in Moscow. Did you spot the trail to Australia in the cover pic? Well, that was me going to World Time Attack Challenge 2013 in Sydney. That was another story however with my former partner in crime, Playboy model and race car driver Inessa Tuskanova. Here are us with Mad Mike on 19th of October.

Anyway, fast forward to 27th of October when me and the Juke R got back to Holland for another adventure. Luckily I used airplane this time. The Juke was dropped off at StickerDUMP for a wrap, something we wanted to do on 24th of August, the day of the crash.

Obligatory CT R34 fanboy pic.

Nou you wouldn’t think we’d go another 2.500 km back for a wrap, did you? Nope. The destination was Madrid.

With new wrap and fresh TE37’s

But why Madrid? Because Gymkhana Finals were taking place there and we got invited by monster Energy to compete against Ken Block.

Which went surprisingly well

With lots of smoke

Long story short, on 3rd of November we finished second. With automatic GTR Gearbox and no hydraulic handbrake

But we’re not finished yet. Remember the rainy Unlim 500+ that got cancelled because of the weather? Well, Russians are persistant b@st@rds, so they decided to go to some warm places where they COULD set some records. So they planned a drag race on the Greek island of Crete on 16th of November.

A bit more than 10 days to go to another part of the world? With our experience? Easy! Unless… All that drifting messes up your gearbox. And for some reason it’s easier to find a Chinese guy who can speak Swahili in Spain, than an R35 gearbox and a workshop that can fit it for you. So we had to go back to Holland where I arranged another gearbox for us. So 1.800 km and a week later on 11th of November I was spending my birthday in the workshop with the Juke R and fresh gearbox.

While we were at it, we installed Nitrous Oxide system… And the Juke was ready for departure on the next day to the island of Crete. I took the plane, while two of our mechanics drove to Athens. Not because I am not a teamplayer, but because I had to arrange the boat from Athens to Crete and I was the only guy who spoke English and we had very little time.

So, 3 days and 3000 km to cover without border crossings? Easy!

The only problem is that for some reason our highly professional and exclusive race team had an outdated GPS that decided to send our group of explorers OVER SEA through Italy. The guys realized it somewhere in Napels when their brain started to work and ask themselves “hmmm, Italian shoe does not reach Greece we think”. The result was already estimated 1800 km driven to and in Italy and detour of 2700 km to Crete. Which brings us a total of 4500 km or 2.800 miles to be covered in 3 days.

So I arrived in Athens in the morning and proceeded to the ferry department. I did not want to spend the money for the ticket unless I was ABSOLUTELY SURE the Juke would arrive in time and they were still somewhere in the Balkan states in the morning. The problem was: the ladies at the counter said I had to buy a ticket before 19:00 which was the end of registration or I won’t be going anywhere. The boat was leaving on 21:00. Luckily I bribed the ladies with some fresh sweets from local bakery and coffee and the Juke arrived 10 minutes before departure.

Long story short we had some fun on Crete.

I also posed next to the 2500 hp Saleen

And we hooned around

And then it was time to go back.

The problem was, that we had to pick up our old gearbox back in Holland again, so we had to travel there first before going back in Russia, which is in total about 6000 km. The only benefit this time was that we had no new events planned after that and we could take it easy and make the trip by ferries.

Well, I hope you’ve made it this far and enjoyed the road trip story!

Sorry if something is unclear, feel free to ask questions in that case!

Bonus and shameless self-promotion after 2 hours of writing: today’s episode!