EXCLUSIVE READERS’ Q&A: Jonny Milner
Why the double British rally champ is not done with competition – just yet
What you saw was what you got with Jonny Milner. He never tried to spin a party line or mould himself to appeal to a certain brand, he simply wore his heart on his sleeve. And while he admits to Motorsport News that might have prevented him making the next step into the World Rally Championship, it endeared him to British rally fans up and down the country.
A touch over 30 years ago the proud Yorkshireman made his first foray into rallying with an old Peugeot 205 van as a starting point, and 13 years later, his name would be engraved on the British Rally Championship trophy. Armed with a Toyota Corolla WRC, he would repeat the feat the following year before narrowly losing out to David Higgins – this time in a Subaru Impreza WRC – in 2004.
A couple of seasons in a Mitsubishi Lancer followed where Milner lost out on the 2006 Mitsubishi Challenge title and a subsequent Mitsubishi works drive on a tiebreak before he took a step back, only to return again and win the British ANCRO series in the same Corolla he won his pair of British titles with.
To this day Milner remains fascinating in conversation. Thanks to the MN readers’ questions, he discusses all sorts from cars with chocolate-like gearboxes, the pivotal stage his daughter Katie has reached in her racing career and what it was like competing at the height of the BRC’s World Rally Car era. But let’s start with how it all began.
Question: What got you into rallying? Percy Wingrove
Via email
Jonny Milner: “Peugeot actually got me into rallying, Des O’Dell. I’d already started at 15 with autograss racing in a Mini and then moved onto rallycross, and we got noticed by Peugeot Talbot Sport and he wanted me to win the rallycross championship and then move into rallying. It was as simple as that. I had watched rallying, I was a big fan of rallying but it never really was my goal. The idea was to go autograss into rallycross into hopefully circuit racing. I love the cars-on-a-grid job and the thrill there. But don’t get me wrong I’m very pleased I went this route.
“We were the first people to bring a 205 GTI into rallycross so that was where the first link started. Des and the team at Peugeot very kindly gave me all the old rally parts, so anything that Louise Aitken-Walker, Malcolm Wilson or Kalle Grundel had used that was sort of a lifed part then I would get it to chuck on the rallycross car. So it sort of got me the bit of hunger and then Des said ‘I want you to come down to a rally day, I think you’ll like it’ and of course I did because it was way more seat time than a short rallycross race. So 1989 I bought an old jiggered 205 diesel van and turned it into a rally car.
“Then I went into full-time rallying with national championships so 1990 we were getting going, ’91 we were team-mates to Kevin Furber in the national championship. I actually moved from home and worked at SBG Sport down at Daventry, a satellite team to Peugeot, and then went on my own for ’92, went back down from 1.9 to a 1.6 [litre engine] and did Top Gear Junior Rally Championship and won that against our main competitor which was Mark Higgins – I have to keep on rubbing it in! And then it was obviously Shell Scholarship so really fond memories and really Des O’Dell without doubt and all the team at Peugeot in Coventry were big sticklers for getting me into rallying.”
MN: What was the change like stepping from the little nimble 205 into the big brute of an Audi Coupe S2 and then a Ford Escort Cosworth with the Shell Scholarship?
JM: “Unbelievable. I suppose the problem was going from a Group A
205 that’s built to withstand no matter what you do to it, then I’m going a bit of a step backwards if that makes sense because I’m going to the showroom class [Group N]. It was more delicate, the gearboxes were made of chocolate, very easily you can end up with only fourth gear so that took a little bit of getting back into being a bit kinder to the car but the difference to four-wheel drive was just phenomenal.”
Question: Is there a sense of regret that you missed out on the F2 Kit Car era, instead you were competing against them in a four-wheel drive? Alan Cartwright
Via email
JM: “I did own a Nissan F2 car but it wasn’t a works car, it was actually a car bought through Jimmy McRae that Alister had put together, which was OK but I never really got my teeth into F2. We didn’t lose our way but we sort of ended up running out of money like happens very often so unfortunately I never really got a proper full flight even though Dave Whittock of NME, Nissan Motorsport Europe, was very kind to us and Higgy [Mark Higgins] in getting us the opportunities to get in certain cars. We were the first people to drive a Nissan Sunny with a sequential gearbox on the Manx against Tommi Makinen and a few of the others there [in 1994]. They were the forefront of technology at that time which seems a long time ago now but it was a shame
because they were proper drivers cars. And they were front-wheel drive so it was back to what I cut my teeth in in the beginning but the problem is for most people, once you’ve been spoilt and got yourself in a four-wheel-drive car you really don’t want to go back. You’ve got that grip, you don’t have to struggle to find grip, the car has got it, so you just get on with it and concentrate on the line and being smooth.”
Question: Have you always been a good firefighter?
Peter Adair
Via email
MN: This must be reference to the Jim Clark Rally 2000 Toyota Celica fire, but didn’t you have a fire with the Subaru on the very same stage four years later?
JM: “Yeah we were seven seconds off the lead of the British championship and on the right tyre at the right time against David Higgins and a high pressure hose exploded in the tunnel that fed the gearbox and fire number two happened.
“But I’m a determined little critter when I want to be and it wasn’t going to beat me, we were going to get the fire out. And in fairness the first fire with the Celica, we had got it under control by a sort of chain gang of helpful spectators bucketing water from a local person’s garden basically. It was only when the fire brigade got there that they blew the extinguisher into where the petrol tank used to be and put it all up again. But that was a learning experience for them as well as us. It’s frightening but I was determined not to lose the whole car which we didn’t.”
MN: You got back out again for the next championship round didn’t you?
JM: “Yeah luckily Duncan, the car owner, had a spare bodyshell so we turned it round and got going again because even when we’re slapped firm in the face we still try and keep going. That’s sort of a good ploy for any determined rally driver, never say never, even when there looks to be no way out you’ll find a way.”
Question: It was 2002 and Justin Dale looks on as Jonny passes, the Peugeot’s engine has just been on fire: title decided. Did Jonny see him parked up at that moment?
Martin Cullen
Via Twitter
JM: “I didn’t but Nicky Beech, my co-driver, did. If you watch the onboard back you can hear he says ‘Justin’s parked up’and then he tells me about four or five times ‘did you see Justin?’And in the end I’m going ‘shut up let’s get to the end of the stage’. It put me off my rhythm. But it was a real shame because it was a slightly different way of [deciding an overall championship], Super 1600 taking maximum points for a class win as we did for the overall rally win. So it was a way to encourage manufacturers in with Super 1600 cars so it was a strange one for me because I didn’t have to just watch for people in the WRC class I had to also look at Justin’s class and see where that little tinker was.
“But it was nice because it was all my friends and helpers from the Peugeot days that were running Justin as well. As much as I’d love Mick Linford and his team to win… I didn’t gloat, that’s the wrong word to say, but I polished the trophy in front of Mick’s face because there was a lot of psychology going on so I was quite pleased that I didn’t bite to any of it and I just got on and did the job we needed.”
Question: What was it like to win your home event [in 2002, Trackrod Rally Yorkshire]?
History Human
Via Twitter
JM: “Really good, and people thought it was the one I knew most and it probably wasn’t, it was probably the one I maybe knew least and hadn’t been there that often, certainly not in a World Rally Car. You’ve just got to give the place so much respect, it’s faster on those straights than it is in Finland so you really have got to have your eye in for that rally without a doubt. But it was great because both championships were won on that rally, my home rally in Yorkshire, so what better way to do it?”
MN: Where does the event rank in terms of rallies you’ve done? One of the best? JM: “I think you’ve always got a soft spot for your home event. You look at Nigel Mansell saying there always was a bit extra half a second or a second a lap with the fact he had the home crowd cheering him on and they certainly did. It was every corner you were seeing people waving you on, way more than any other rally. Was it the best rally? It’s up there but I still for me feel the Manx International really is such a challenge and you’ve got to give the place such respect and it bites at any point and to me the one that’s probably on most British championship drivers’list is the Manx.”
Question: Which British title are you most proud of, 2002 or 2003?
Ian Hardie
Via email
JM: “Both really, but probably the second season. The second season we came into it as defending champions, we’d got a good track record under our belt and had a good team running the car and were proudly running the car from our own little place in Yorkshire. But the second year ramped it up big time because you had people like Jari-Matti Latvala coming in, you’d Tapio Laukkanen the former champion in there in a car that was equal to mine if not slightly better. Both Tapio and myself looked at the end of one stage, can’t remember which rally it was, fairly early on and Jari-Matti took about two seconds a mile out of us and we both sort of went ‘OK, we better get on with this! This lad’s going to be hard to beat’and of course we know where he went but you had to go with him. I couldn’t stand still you had to push the envelope and it brought me on as a driver big time.”
Question: Which was better, the Corolla or the Subaru?
Derek Gumbrell
Via email
JM: “I’ve been fortunate to drive a few different World Rally Cars. They all more or less handle the same, or you can make them all handle the same and do what you want them to do. I’ve a really soft spot for the Toyota because that really was a home team effort. I think I’d probably have to say the Toyota. I felt that it was a stronger car, if you asked me to go back and say should I have kept it for a third year then probably yes, that would’ve been a more reliable car than the Subaru.
“Whether it was down to our preparation of the Subaru or just the fact the Subaru needs more parts changing earlier. Probably for a lot of years I’m the last driver to win the British Rally Championship by running the team, building the engine, building the gearbox, doing everything from in-house here. So none of it went away to Cologne or TTE or Prodrive it was all done in-house here so the Corolla’s got a very nice soft spot and I think in the future if I were to choose a World Rally Car, if I were to buy one back, it would have to be a Corolla.”
MN: At the time, I presume the decision process in replacing the Toyota was that it was getting a bit long in the tooth compared to other cars and you had to update it?
JM: “Yeah. We knew it was going to be a tough year for the third year and it was a challenge that still hasn’t been done yet, three in a row. Obviously Matt Edwards was looking like he was on track for last year until we had everything stopped so it was a thing that not even Jimmy McRae had done, three in a row, so it’s the one that got away. It’s the one that hurts most and the one I remember most.”
Question: Ulster Rally 2004, was that the most agonising result you ever had? Michael Murray
Via email
JM: “Like I said before it’s the ones I remember more than the wins, the ones that got away. A silly mistake, pushing a bit too hard, thought I had the car underneath me, semi misheard a note but it was certainly not Nicky’s fault it was my fault 100%.
“I went for what everyone’s done and I’d never done it in Ulster, I’d never gone into a field through an open gate. It looked like it was just going to tighten that bit too much on me so I thought ‘right I’ll exit the stage straight on into the field that’s fine.’ And then, jigger me, in the middle of a field was a ditch. So we got into the field no problem, were on the handbrake got it turned round and coming back out more or less and then wallop, it just beached itself. It was stupid really but only in Ireland I suppose. There’s never a boring stage there! It does hurt now and coming up 17 years later, it still hurts. But if it didn’t there’s something wrong. You learn from your mistakes don’t you?”
Question: Who was your toughest rival in the BRC? And tell us about the fight with the Irish boys!
Nick Sullivan
Via email
JM: “Well it was a difficult one really against Tapio in the Subaru because there only really was us two. You had to be first or second, it was as cut throat as that after Jari-Matti had kept chucking it off into the bushes, and I mean that nicely! So that brought Tapio and me on really, having young Jari-Matti Latvala against us but other than that the first year against Justin Dale, I wasn’t directly against him was
I? Really the second year with Tapio and Jari-Matti was probably the best I’ve ever driven I feel and then in the early days you go back to the junior championship there was a good field of good, hot young drivers. You had to keep your nose clean, we were all very inexperienced and you had to be on it. Nothing else in the world mattered but that next rally and that next stage.”
MN: So the second part of that question with the Irish, was there a fierce battle between the British and Irish Tarmac competitors?
JM: “In Higgy’s eyes he had to beat them no matter what. For me, I was happy to win the British championship. I didn’t need to beat the Irish so I didn’t go out to beat the Irish. They knew their stages very well and you had to give them some respect that they were hard chargers to beat. When it became a little bit more even is when you went to the Manx. Then they hadn’t done it as much as their own home stages so then we can open the can of whoop ass on them! But on their own territory you just had to be mindful they knew it well.”
Question: Was it the heartache of missing out on the 2006 Mitsubishi Challenge that made you stop competing? And how special was it to return and win British ANCRO in 2010 in the same BRC-winning Corolla? Scott Steele
Via email
JM: “Joint-winners with Gwyndaf Evans. Again a silly mistake I slipped off the road on the RAC Rally [Wales Rally GB] and gave it back to Gwyndaf but those were the days when they brought SuperRally in. Taking away the SuperRally idea, we’d have won it hands down. But it was OK, it wasn’t the heartbreak of when we lost the championship in 2004.
“The reason we stopped was down to the budget. We were running our own business, you couldn’t just keep on spending, spending, spending. It stopped because of financial constraints, I’m still hungry now to do something. Of course, we were then in a position to buy back the Corolla in 2009 off Derek McGarrity and rebuilt it all and off we went to do the ANCRO. Brilliant. To get the car back that I won the British championship in was phenomenal and went on to win that which was great. And I think I’m still the current national rally champion [as the series stopped], it’s a long time I’m a reigning champion now! Ten years!
“Of late, the Corolla went and all my time and attention was put into my youngest daughter Katie with her racing career, and she’s only just fledged the nest now in the fact she’s an academy driver for McLaren, first-ever female factory driver signed by McLaren and that’s a massive opportunity and she pinches herself every morning. She was never interested in rallying. I never instructed her how to drive a car all I could do was give her the best car I could prepare for her .”
Question: How come Katie never followed you into rallying and went racing instead?
Bruce Rogerson
Via email
JM: “She was like her other two sisters, interested in horses to start with and then got bored with having to muck them out when it was a cold morning and this, that and the other so we started at autograss racing at 12, so she did really well in that, came to the top of her club championship.
“And then the best year she finished second overall in the country and it was looking like all she could do was shoot off into the lead and win all the races. She got to where she needed to be so then we had the opportunity of looking to take her into circuit racing. There was still a chance she could rally because autograss racing is mud, so the car’s sliding about, you’re drifting. But she, like me, loved the fact there were 10 cars on the grid and she was having a real fight through them.
“It’s never even entered her mind to have a go at rallying so off she went to do the Junior Saloon Car Championship in a Citroen Saxo in a learning year the first year then she won the championship the second year. She was the first girl to get a pole position, first girl to win a race and then obviously the first female to win the championship and she won the championship by the most points.
I keep saying it was the well-prepared car by her dad, but no it was her driving… that’s still out with the jury!”
Question: How come a lot of your rivals flirted with WRC and you didn’t?
Mark Freeman
Via email
JM: “I’m happy with where I was.
I think anybody that’s come through the British championship and won the British championship would have aspirations of going to the World championship. I suppose we never pushed crazily to get to the next step because alongside the rallying I was trying to run my own
business, my own engineering company and we had a lot of work with Toyota all over the Europe and in fact the world now.
“So that was always a fallback plan if the rallying didn’t earn me a living. So I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket, I was happy to have two baskets and have the engineering business alongside and develop that. It’s not one that got away, it would’ve been nice to have a go at WRC but I suppose you’re watched by a lot of people, you’re watched by a lot of teams and your face has to fit. I was quite a straight-talking Yorkshireman back then, I still am now, and you know I say it how it is which maybe isn’t the completely correct way but no regrets.
“I’m still the same person and my business is doing very well and I’m happy with that. The fact that I’ve had 10 years off really between winning the national championship and now is down to what I did with Katie and then watch this space for the future because I’ve got Katie to where I need her to be now so she can do stuff on her own, so now we seriously are looking. I’ve rebuilt my rally service truck, my recce car is all here still which I’ve had for 20 years, everything’s here so the crash helmet’s just gathered dust, it hasn’t been retired yet!”
Question: How do you feel about the BRC these days. Do you think you could still be competitive in today’s climate of BRC rallying?
Malcolm Wilson Rally
Via Facebook
JM: “I’d like to hope I’d be competitive! It unfortunately looks quite an expensive championship. I know that when Mark Taylor ran the championship in our days it was frowned upon if you brought something in particularly brand-new to compete in the British championship. If there was any mistakes, I’m not saying I’m the messiah to know all the answers, if they put a six-year cap on the cars to say you can have nothing [newer] than a sixyear-old World Rally Car it made it affordable for people, rather than what we’ve got now which is an expensive championship to do. [It’s] not only expensive to buy the car, to support the car, the rebuilds of the car and everything else but don’t get me wrong they’re the types of cars I want to see out there! And fair play to the boys and girls that have got out there and found the budget to go and do it and it’s what the spectators want.”
Question: Do you think the new hybrid regulations for the WRC will bolster the number of cars entered?
Joe Bramble
Via Twitter
JM: “I think hybrid has got to be looked at. You’ve got Dakar going hydrogen power, you’ve got many championships trying to move technology forward and it’s in defence of motorsport that Formula 1, rallying, touring cars and everything else that in a lot of cases in the very early days they were the very first people to develop ABS and sequential gearboxes and all these things which are now commonplace on road cars.
“So it’s a perfect development testbed for future cars without a doubt. We’ve got to go that way, we’ve got to be greener but I think the problem is the price will go up as well but we’ve got to move with the times. We can’t do what we have been doing, we’ve got to move forward.”