What will be said about Kalle Rovanperä’s amazing success in Puuppola, a traditional rally location in the heart of central Finland?
PUPPOLA. On a July morning, the village road of Puuppola, located north of Jyväskylä, is quiet. However, there is no real village street here. The school and kindergarten are still in the holiday mood and the village store, where Kalle Rovanperä too reportedly used to shop for ice cream a lot, closed a few years ago. On the sides of the village road, the landscape is mostly dominated by fields.
In front of the school, a scooter whizzes past me, the driver of which looks quite familiar. A four-time world champion Tommi Mäkinen Tuomo-veli turns around and parks his go-to game on the side of the road. Then he snarls past the driver of the rumbling tractor. Just Tuomo Mäkinen made the legendary “Carlos’ car is back” call to his brother. Living in Puuppola, Tuomo Mäkinen has also seen from the field how Kalle Rovanperä has grown towards becoming a rally professional.
– After all, Kalle’s success is a great thing for both Puuppola and the whole of Finland. Yes, Kalle is certainly one of the most talented rally drivers of all time, if not the most talented. It’s great that we finally get to score even for the French, Mäkinen refers to Loeb and Ogier’s almost two decades of dominance in the World Series.
One of the cornerstones of the young Finnish star’s success is considered to be that he has ridden a variety of motor-driven devices all his life. Mäkinen offers one concrete example of this at the gate of a local kindergarten. Until a few years ago, the offices of Tommi Mäkinen Racing were located at that location.
– Kalle went to that yard to practice showing off on a moped. I’ve been here a few times to open the gate for him. This was a quiet place and a gated area. It was good to train here.
Sometimes the atmosphere in Puuppola is like in Maranello. In Ferrari’s hometown, F1 victories are celebrated by ringing church bells. The bell rings in Puuppola.
– Every time Kalle wins, the bells are rung here in Puuppola, Tuomo Mäkinen says as he steps towards the log fence standing in the yard. Then he pulls the wire on the wall and the clock on the roof of the shed starts to chime.
Soon we will see – or rather hear – whether the bell will ring even after this Jyväskylä World Rally Championship.
There is movement at the swimming beach of Lake Korttajärvi, located by Puuppolantie, so I will head there next. Jasmin, Eeva, Iina and Anni, who are rushing from the lake to the pier, are a little confused when I ask them if Kalle Rovanperä is a familiar name to them. At the end of a moment’s sobbing, the girls say in unison the rally driver in question. Except for Eeva, the girls do not know the location of Rovanperä’s home. However, it hasn’t been clear to him either that this is exactly Kalle’s home. The parents have reportedly only mentioned that it is the house of a rally driver.
However, the girls do not rule out the possibility that they would be more fans of the rally sometime in the future. And then Kalle would be their number one favorite. However, according to Jasmin, her own father Erno is currently an even bigger idol than Kalleaki. Eeva, on the other hand, will come in a little while to tell you that she also knows a rally driver Mikko Hirvonen I live a few kilometers away.
Sitting on the edge of the pier Päivi Huhtanen says that he lived in Puuppola for eight years and that he watched young Kalle Rovanperä’s driving videos on YouTube with great interest.
So are you some kind of rally horse?
– No, I’m more like Kalle. By the way, I don’t really follow the rally, but when Kalle drives, I like to watch it. I have never met Kalle, but I suspect I saw him some years ago riding a motorcycle. I do know where his house is located and I think I recognize Harri’s car as well.
The light traffic lane along Puuppolantie seems to be popular with joggers. Joggers pass by at a steady pace, some on bikes, others with jogging strollers. The clicks heard from the slope also reveal an approaching roller skier. A steady uphill procrastinator Heta Jalonen stops to talk when I shout at him the question “does Kalle Rovanaperä know you” as if it were a shorthand for temporary information.
Jalonen doesn’t know that Rovanperä is from Puuppola, but he does know from Jyväskylä. The skier representing Tampere Pyrintö has only lived in Jyväskylä for six months. The last kilometers of the 30 kilometer training run are currently underway.
From now on, will you start calling this your training route the Rovanperä run?
– It might even be. In the past, this has only been Puuppola’s run for me. Maybe the name could be changed now.
While the skier continues his run, I stay for a while to photograph the peaceful rural idyll. Then I pick up the phone to ask Mikko Hirvos if it would be possible to photograph and interview him at the same time. Hirvonen laughs as he answers and says that he just recently wondered about a photographer who looked somehow familiar along Puuppolantie. He himself was in the car going to take the dogs to Tikkakoski for swimming.
I spent a few hours in Puuppola and during that time the brother of a four-time world champion and a four-time World Cup silver medalist had driven past me. Rally circles are really present in Puuppola.
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