JFK Rhino Team

JFK Rhino Team

New Member
hi, i'm Nico, i was reffered to this forum by Brian from BlackRhino and JoeyD.

I live in Belgium, Europe.

I have been offroading for lots of years and 5 years ago, a Rhino caught my attention.
In 2008 I bought a Rhino for Trophy purposes, and this year we're going for the 3rd time to the Croatia Trophy ( Croatia Trophy) an offroad event where you have to drive RB's during 8 consecutive days.
It takes place in very rough terrrain (swamps, forrests, lumberjackroads,etc)

I'll post some pics of the rebuild this year,
I'd like to thank BlackRhinoPerformance for the swift and superb service !

We leave for Croatia on the 25th of April, my Rhino is the only SSV competing in the Trophy which are all custom built 4x4 cars.

Pics from last Trophies (2009 & 2010)


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russisch moerasbakske, 2 assen en een camry 3 liter motor, copiloot is andrei rusov (wrc copiloot, 4x parijs dakar, enz)

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Me (with cap) and my copilot

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ome pics from last year after the Croatia Trophy when we decided to rebuild the lawnmower


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rest of rebuild pics i still have to sort out


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this was november 2010
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small problem lol

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scorpionchallenge, belgium

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among the big boys in croatia

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refitting gearbox, variomatic and new camshaft


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schakelmechanisme vd boite

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neyt is een handje komen helpen

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"wat moeten we allemaal nog doen..."

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"vaste" zijbuizen om er niet uit te vallen :lol:

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vloersteunen/bescherming

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Brantz tripmaster gesponsord door R.Inc.

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pictures from Croatia in 2009




Proloog



Snelheidsrace - 12 x 3km, bos en moeras met 1 verplichte pitstop met wielwissel







De rivier dwarsen... na 2uur drogen,carbu en vario kuisen en wachten starten en verder rijden..




so far, so good en 20cm verder ...














en toen stopte de motor..








op het droge gewinched door Willem en Hendrik..




whatever sh!t hits the fan .... keep smiling !!!
















































 
CT 2009







if you don't have +300hp you must be smart and take the outer side lol



































































































30min before the Start we decided to clean the fueltank lol




















de medische dienst... stonden aan de checkpoints en in de buurt van gevaarlijke stukken
















this trophy is europe's toughest...

this is a blog from Carl, LRM journalist, he wrote this at the 2010 edition

PROLOGUE
The Croatia Trophy always begins with a competition on the first day which determines the running order for the following day’s stage. This year the Prologue consisted of a predominantly fast and dry circuit with cars being released three at a time to race for position. Muddy areas made choosing the right line important and there was one potential 3-lane winching point made as slippery as possible by the organising team by adding thousands of litres of water.

Positioning yourself in the table of results for the prologue is something of an art. Make the fastest time and you’ll be first away tomorrow – but is that a good thing? You’ll be pioneering the route and possibly missing markers and making navigational mistakes, which will affect your stage times

Received wisdom from some experienced Trophy drivers has it you should aim to complete the prologue somewhere between tenth or fifteenth, where the route has been well defined by your predecessors and those in front of you will be fast and experienced so you won’t be held up. Or, what the hell, maybe it’s better just to go for it and leave the pack behind?


STAGE 1
Adrenaline levels plummet, testosterone drains away from the drivers’ right feet and the logical brain starts to function. Experienced competitors are used to this and are mentally prepared for a tough first stage. Less experienced drivers commonly exhaust themselves in the first couple of hours and spend the rest of the stage (and probably the whole event) wondering what they have let themselves in for.

Ah but, Stage One of the 2010 Croatia Trophy was even more cunning than that this year. Old hands had psyched themselves up for a blistering start straight into the deepest swamp the forest could offer but instead found themselves parading in an exciting procession of competitor vehicles, press cars and support vehicles through the centre of Glina, the local administrative capital. Glina suffered greatly during the war and this unusual event was a welcome sign that the town was once again back on the map. The local population was out in force to wave, photograph and greet their visitors. Kids practised their English. The camera function on people’s mobile phones had never been so useful. The ’show’ start was spectacular and the smiles on people’s faces made it all worthwhile.

Then, just as the old hands had let down their guard, relaxed a little too much in the perfect Spring sunshine and had even begun to notice the blossom on the almond trees (some were even trying to make silly cuckoo noises, if you can imagine that) – a typically vicious stage one was suddenly underway. Swamps that could swallow a truck, ravines ten centimetres too narrow for a normal offroad vehicle, winch-burning ascents, diff-hunting tree stumps hiding under layers of glutinous chocolate and plenty of opportunities for the press to photograph the undersides of some of the less fortunate vehicles.

The Croatia Trophy this year is clearly continuing to stake its claim as the world’s toughest Trophy event and I don’t think many of the exhausetd, red-eyed competitors today will be challenging that claim at the end of this year’s Stage One.

NIGHT STAGE
There’s something special and unique about Trophy night stages. I think it’s partly the smell of the forest at night – somehow more earthy and leafy – or perhaps it’s the fact that you’re surrounded by patches of impenetrable dark which suddenly leap into life as a vehicle crests a rise and turns black night into slices of day with a bank of 150 watt spotlights or razor sharp LED light bars.

The Night Stage is underway, you’ve got to think and move fast, you’ve got to be strong and determined and hard and the competitors are as psyched up as they ever were. It’s a famously tough event and these are famously tough people.
CIRCUITSTAGE

It must be OK to stand here, you say to yourself. Nice position for some good photos. Good sunlight pouring over your shoulder. No thorns in the bushes around you.

But when the Croatia Trophy Circuit Stage mass start of over sixty vehicles is about to get underway and the drumroll of over sixty barking engines rolls over you – you step back a couple of paces. The bearded Land Rover bloke with the pipe quickly gets up off his stool and suddenly looks a bit less of an expert

The leading cars scream past you filling it with crunchy dust.

The Circuit Stage is well and truly underway. Competitors negotiate a circuit of just under four kilometres multiple times, tackling creeks, ravines, ascents and swamps and doing their best to stay ahead of the competition. Because of the mass start the early laps can lead to exciting racing and, as the stage progresses, some spectacular overtaking moves can be seen as the leaders lap slower opposition

It’s loud. It’s multicoloured. It’s exciting. It’s fun. It’s fast. It’s great for spectators. It’s the Croatia Trophy Circuit Stage.
STAGE 5
ingekort
Yes, Stage 5 already (Prologue, S1, Trophy Day, Circuit Stage and S5…) – and this is where the Croatia Trophy begins to BITE.

As I write this in the dark after a long day, there are still cars on the track who started at 9.30 this morning. In all that time you can bet they haven’t selected fourth gear even once

Jokes are cracked, the spirit of fellowship is strong – and then the very same people leap back into their cars and do their utmost to overtake the others on the first few metres of forest track.

Stage 5 also begins to bring home to you exactly why people call the Croatia Trophy the toughest event of its kind in the world. Nothing I’ve seen comes even close to this, and it’s only Tuesday.
STAGE 6

Mud, mud and more mud. Black glue.
You haven’t got a chance against this mud. It’s the same mud that also grabs hold of powerful, speeding cars as they try to escape and easily brings them to a complete halt in a second

Angry engines scream in protest at being stationary. It makes no difference. The mud has got hold of its victim and a primeval struggle begins.

As I said yesterday, Stage 5 was tough this year. (Last night the organisers were still looking for one team of competitors 14 hours after they had started the 58 kilometre stage.) But, it seems, to cook up a delicious Croatia Trophy Stage 6 you need take all the ingredients of Stage 5 – gulleys, ravines, creeks, streams, near-vertical banks to ascend or descend and narrow winding tracks squeezing between trees – and simply add water. And the result? Yep. Mud, mud and more mud.
STAGE 7

After a Stage Six that had to be cut short by the organisers when some of the tail-enders were only just past the half way point at 11pm and two checkpoint marshals towards the end of the stage had almost died of boredom, you would think there might be a slightly later and more humane start on the morning of Stage Seven? Hah. No chance

As I mentioned in the first of these blogs, the organisers address some of their health and safety issues by deliberately designing Stage One to be absolutely exhausting for all the competitors. This cunning plan reduces the risk of adrenalin-driven over-enthusiasm on the part of some of the drivers which can cause silly accidents in the subsequent stages. ‘Tire ‘em out, make ‘em weak as puppies and they’ll start thinking with their heads instead of other parts of their anatomy’ is the theory. Clever stuff. It actually works.

Respect. I don’t know how these people do it. Some of them, no, all of them, must be as hard as nails. The Croatia Trophy is one of the longest events on the Trophy eventing calendar but these guys (and girls – there are two female co-drivers who are amongst the very best competitors here).keep putting in an enormous athletic effort hour after hour and day after day. Many of them get virtually no sleep because they are repairing their vehicles every night, but there they are at the start every day, cheerfully cracking jokes, swapping insults and telling lies with their fellow competitors.

Mud, water, trees, logs, rain, the whine of hot winches, the howl of overworked engines, the seemingly impossible achieved and achieved impressively quickly by connected teams of exceptional individuals.

As a mere blogger and laptop poker with only normal amounts of human strength, I take my hat off to them – or at least I would if it wasn’t raining again.
STAGE 8
deze dus enkel over de start gesukkeld en finito

As always towards the final stages of the Croatia Trophy, the leaderboard is well stretched out. This doesn’t of course mean much. This event is so tough on cars and people you never know what’s going to happen until the last second of the competition.

Vehicles which were immaculate showpieces a week ago now look like something you might see in Junkyard Wars. Take an immaculate 50,000 Euro show car, give it to a gang of delinquent teenagers for a week and it would still be in better condition than some of these vehicles. But they keep plugging on. Earlier today I was watching a car reversing fast up a steep ascent and through a long ravine because his rear winch was the only one still working. How he thought he was going to tackle the remaining forty kilometres of the stage I have no idea.

nd then the finale – the cleansing crossing of the river Glena to the finish line. Colours not seen for days magically appear on the cars again. Sponsors’ stickers suddenly start to advertise again, all just in time for the lines of photographers at the finish line. Cars emerge from the Glina in a burst of spray and applause. Tired smiles and stinging backslaps are followed by excited chatter and extravagant hand gestures as competitors re-live the stage and tell their stories.
Croatia Trophy
 
Welcome JFK and I have got to say you run that machine as hard, or harder than any I have seen in the U.S...awesome pictures and welcome to the Underground.
 
thanks !
I try to prove that my 50hp lawnmower can compete with custom 4x4's with up to 500bhp... my weight and width are big advantages in this kind of competition.. kinda David vs Goliath lol

here's mine next to Pete's custom buggy (600hp, 4wheelsteering, PTO with 80m of rope)

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You are doing some incredible stuff with that little machine.
I "downsized" from a 600 HP hillshooter sand rail to the Teryx when back problems started to overwhelm my life. I live in the mountains and have rugged terrain like that close by, the Rubicon is only 2 hours south of here; but once you've been in the sand, well, it is hard to describe, but it took my life over..30 plus years ago.
Here is a pic of my baby...I miss her!
If you ever get to the western U.S. you need to hit the sand!
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very cool Nico!! Welcome to the site and thanks for sharing!! Good luck in the next Trophy race!
 
Hey Nico! Good to hear from you. Those photos are great! How's the build going? Are you going to be ready?

Can't wait to get some feedback from this year's compitition.
Brian
 
Hi Brian, build is going well, on schedule, tied Murphy down in the shed..

next week we're putting in the engine, missed last weekend's national comp but still 3 rounds left when we're back from Croatia..

this is the startlist for this year's Croatia Trophy :

it's the third consecutive time I drive this race with my Rhino,
you can see that it's me against the world lol



START LIST – CROATIA TROPHY 2011

CROATIA TROPHY 2011

StNo. DRIVER & CODRIVER STATE VEHICLE

30 NICO VAN WINGEN & NICO GILLIS B YAMAHA RHINO

31 NICO LADANG & WERNER OST B JEEP AMC CJ 7

32 PETER WHITMAN & ADRIAN TURNER GB D&G H3 BUGGY

33 WOUTER VEKEMAN & STIJN VEKEMAN B DAIHATSU ROCKY

34 HENDRIK DE NIJS & ANDRIES DE NIJS B JEEP CJ 7

35 AXEL BURMANN & TOM OLIESLAGERS B JEEP WRANGLER

36 BEN FLAMAING & MANU HOUBEN B LAND ROVER HYBRID

37 PETER TIMMERS & TJEERD ROSIER B LAND ROVER DEF 90

38 GORDAN KROTA & IVO BRGODAC HR JEEP WRANGLER

39 NINO PEKOC & DAMIR MUHAREMOVIC HR JEEP WRANGLER

40 MIKHAIL KLYUYKO & IGOR PENTINEN RUS HMC Evo2

41 WIEL LOO & KENNY LOO NL JEEP CJ 5

42 HRVOJE BARTOLI? & BORIS KUS HR LAND ROVER DEF 90

43 ROB MIERAS & JASPER TOBIAS NL LAND ROVER DEFENDER 90

44 MARIO ECKHARDT & CHRISTIAN DROSS D JEEP WRANGLER

45 HARALD SEYFRIED & THOMAS JELINEK A JEEP WRANGLER

46 PHILON PARPOTTAS & JAMES TREMBATH GB LAND ROVER DEF

47 CHRISTOPHER ABEL & DANIEL FABB GB D&G TAURUS

48 MARTIN STAINER & PAUL BASS GB LR SPACEFRAME

49 STEPHANE ZOSSO & STEPHAN BERGER CH JEEP WRANGLER JK

50 STEFANO BERATTO & ALEXANDRO BERATTO CH WRANGLER TJ

52 RAOUL SCHMID & JEROME CHATELAIN CH NISSAN PATROL GR

53 ZORAN SVEC & TBD HR SUZUKI SAMURAI

54 MARCIN LUKASZEWSKI & MAGDALENA DUHANIK PL SUZUKI JIMNY
55 WALTER SCHUHMACHER & BERTRAM PANSY A JEEP WRANGLER

56 EDVINS VANSOVICS& GUNTA KRUMINA LV JEEP CJ 7

57 STEVE GITTINS & MARK MORGAN GB LAND ROVER DEFENDER

58 HANSPETER BLEUER & HANSPETER LÃœSCHER CH LAND ROVER DEF
59 JANEZ SLAVKO KRIVIC & DARKO GORIUP SLO PUCH 230 GE

60 JAMES MARSDEN & WAYNE SMITH GB/AUS LAND ROVER
DEFENDER 90 TD5

61 BOROS CSABA & ZOLTAN KONYA H JEEP WRANGLER

62 ROK PETELIN & LUKA PETELIN SLO JEEP WRANGLER

63 SZYLARD MAGYAR & KRISZTIAN KOVACS H MERCEDES G

64 EDWIN VAN DER MAAS&JOHAN VAN DER MAAS NL JEEP WRANGLER

65 MARC GIELKENS & BEN SCHULPEN B JEEP CJ

66 KLAUS MARIA TACKEN & MARC SCHAEFER D TOYOTA HILUX

67 GILLES GIROUSE & MAX DELPHINAU CH MERCEDES G

68 NICK ANDERSON & NEVILLE HUDD GB LAND ROVER DEFENDER TRAY BACK

69 PETER ARENDS & PAUL DE HAAS NL LAND ROVER
DEFENDER100

71 PAUL VAN DER LINDE & MARK JANSEN NL LAND ROVER DEFENDER 90

72 MAURICE FARRUGIA & MARIO XUEREB M LAND ROVER DEFENDER 90

73 MARTIJN RIETER & PASQUELINO VAN RIJN NL LAND ROVER DEFENDER 100

74 KEVIN MALLIA & NEVILLE CIANTAR M MARUTI SPECIAL

75 FRITZ BECKER & MARKUS OSE D TOYOTA

76 REMY LOO & DANNY MAESSEN NL/B JEEP CJ 5

77 TAMAS SIEBEL & BALAZS SIEBEL H TOYOTA LANDCRUISER

78 SIMON BUCK & MATTHEW COOK GB LAND ROVER DEFENDER

79 CLIVE BILLING & ANDY NASH GB LAND ROVER DEFENDER
TRAYBACK

80 TIM PANNEELS & CEDRIC SMETS B D&G TAURUS

81 WOUTER TYBERGHIEN & JOOP BARTEN B/NL LAND ROVER DEFENDER TRAYBACK

82 DOMINIQUE TRAFOIER & DENNIS NEDOBITKIN D JEEP

83 KENNETH COLEIRO & MASSIMO MAGRI M JEEP WRANGLER

85 PREDRAG VINKOVI? & MARTIN KOSIK HR PUCH 280 GE

86 RALF BERLIT & STEFFI BERLIT D OFFROAD EXTREM VICTORY 1

87 ARTURO BIAGIONI & GABRIELE CALICETTI I SUZUKI SAMURAI

89 GEORG LACH & CHRISTOPH MOSTLER A JEEP YJ

90 SERGEY SAVENKO & ANDREY RUSOV RUS AUTOCAM 2160

91 JÃœRGEN MEIER FRANK EYSSELEIN D JEEP CHEROKEE
 
According to my calendar, the fun starts tomorrow. Good luck to you Nico, and to your team!

If you can, let us know how you're doing. And take a LOT of pictures!
 

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