Insanity Rules (Part 1)

When Just Kampers’ head honcho, Mark Reynolds, decided to enter the 2017 Mille Miglia in a 1956 Beetle, he needed a support team to back him up. What vehicle did they choose? A T6 4motion of course 

- Stephen Gosling

For those of you that haven’t heard of the Mille Miglia, here’s a bit of background. It’s a 1,000-mile (hence ‘Mille’) race held on open public roads in Italy, starting in Brescia on the edge of Lake Garda in the north, dropping down to Rome and then finishing back in Brescia. It was known for being a flat-out race of attrition and ran 24 times from 1927 until 1957, when it was stopped after a tragic accident that claimed the life of a driver, navigator and nine spectators.

The event made a comeback in 1977 as a regularity rally held over four days, open only to vintage and classic cars built between 1927 and 1957 that raced, or registered to race, in one of the original 24 events. It’s in this format the Mille Miglia continues to be held to this day, though Mille Miglia provenance is not the sole criteria for entry these days.

Just Kampers’ founder and MD, Mark Reynolds, was to drive the Beetle, christened ‘Jack the giant slayer.’ Mark’s son, Josh, was to navigate. Both know their way around VWs but, with so many horror stories about how many cars fail to finish due to mechanical failures, they knew attempting to go it alone would be foolhardy at best, especially after discovering a VW factory-supported Split Window Bug retired in 2011. If VW itself couldn’t finish, it wasn’t going to be easy!

So the decision was made to have a support crew. That crew consisted of JK staff members Pete Dempsey, Alex Noel and me. All of us know VWs inside out, and were confident that, given the right tools and spare parts (or, failing that, zip ties and gaffer tape), we could x pretty much anything by the side of the road.