The noise cut across the darkness of a mid-summer Monday night in Jyväskylä. One block away, on the corner of Urhonkatu, a policeman smiled at the site of a Toyota GR Supra making its way out of the city.
To say the Supra was sideways simply didn’t do the moment justice. It was side-on. Side-on, like 90 degrees to the direction of travel, with its rears re-arranging the true meaning of lit up.
Their boy was well and truly back in town.
When DirtFish finished talking to Kalle Rovanperä in the middle of Rally Finland, he talked of an interesting project on the immediate horizon.
Dream Run is the end result.
It’s the day after the World Rally Championship departed the city. Or most of the World Rally Championship departed. Takamoto Katsuta, Roope Korhonen, Juha Kankkunen and Harri Rovanperä hung around for a while.
Things were about to get interesting downtown.
Rovanperä Jr grew up watching Ken Block build his Gymkhana legend and Mad Mike drift his way around the world. Both made an impression on the young Finn. Last month was his moment, his opportunity to pay homage to his urban heroes.
More than a year in the making – and made with the full backing of the City of Jyväskylä – the video is, pretty much, the dream drive for the hometown hero.
“The first idea came a few years ago,” Rovanperä told DirtFish, “and then it took some time to really get into planning it. One year ago we really started to make this project properly and from planning it from zero to the finished product, it took like one year. The actual days of filming it was three days, full days and also nights.
“As a whole, this is a dream project, because you’d never otherwise get to drive and drift in these places like this.
“I just tried to combine all the stuff I’ve seen and what I like a lot. Then we just tried to make a combination of all those things, also what the director (Niko Hirvimäki) of the film – he’s a car guy also, so he had really good ideas.”
“And, of course, it felt really nice to be drifting around Jyväskylä. All of the locations we picked would be, let’s say, the dream places to drift. In the beginning, we were a bit hesitant if we can get the permission to all of the locations, but yeah, at the end we got all the places we wanted. It was really cool to be driving with all of the roads closed and everything in place – I have to say such a big thank you to the police and everybody for making this happen.”
And we’ve all been there, haven’t we. We’ve all driven through our backyard and wondered what it might be like to have the streets to ourselves.
The film is shot between Laukaa and Jyväskylä and includes the Tourula ramp, an intersection between the E63 and E75, two of central Finland’s main roads. This ramp curves and cambers beautifully. It’s been driven by Rovanperä hundreds of times in roads cars, World Rally Cars, Rally1 cars and, of course, on his way to a famous Rally Finland victory in 2025.
But it’s never been driven like this: full bore with Supra dancing from lock to lock.
Surprisingly, that wasn’t the favorite.
Delivering a donut outside Burger King? Especially with the added drama of a flash of flame exploding through a cloud of burned rubber in a spellbinding midnight display of northern light.
Nope. Not that either.
“If I had to pick one favorite spot from the shoot,” he said, “it would definitely be Järvilinnantie in Laukaa – it was awesome to drive the Supra on such a winding road with impressive elevation changes.”
So, having dreamed the dream and now lived the reality. How was it?
He pauses, reliving some of those insane moments. Then starts with a smile: “I would say it’s really close to the perfect film. Of course, there is always things: we were really, really limited on time, the days were long and tough for the whole crew. It was difficult to make everything happen we wanted in such a short time…”
The grin widens.
“But I would say we got pretty much everything we wanted. It’s really, really amazing and I’m really happy with the final decisions and the final product.
“And having some of my friends and, of course, Taka and Roope driving few of my cars was cool. I have really great memories from the three days, having friends on the filming set enjoying a lot with the whole crew of my team and the film crew. We all enjoyed the whole product.”
But nobody enjoyed it quite like Kalle. Since 2018, drifting has been such a big part of his life. Even when the weather changed, he refused to let it spoil his fun. The rain killed the tire smoke, but only meant more time on the lock-stops.
“When you are drifting,” said Rovanperä, “it’s just a way of driving a car without needing to compete or needing to try to be fast or something. You can just drive as you feel. And you can just enjoy the driving. It’s a bit like art.
“It’s more about just doing what you feel. And, you know, also the driving is kind of impression of your driving style and everything. You can choose what you do with the car.
“I’m really excited to see the film now. I’m gonna be watching it a few times now and just enjoying it.”
You’re not the only one, Kalle. You’re not the only one.
