Two-time British Rally champion Jonny Milner will tackle his local event, the International Rally Yorkshire this Saturday. Here he looks ahead to the round, the penultimate in the 2006 Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship...
Q:
Jonny, it’s raining today, what do you think it’s going to be like on Saturday?
Jonny Milner:
I think the weather’s going to be fine for Saturday. It’s rained today just to dampen down the dust a little bit! We tested on Wednesday up in the forest and it wasn’t long before it started to get dusty. It’s a very hard base to the tracks, like most of the Yorkshire rallies, so you soon get down to good stuff.
Q:
You’ve complained from a slight lack of power this season, how’s it looking at the moment?
JM:
I blooming hope we’ve found more pace from the car, it certainly felt stronger. It’s very difficult being out of the car so long, as you jump back in it and think it’s fast, then you do ten runs and could do with going a bit faster!
It certainly seems to hold on to the boost better now. We’ve put a new turbo on this time and done everything we can do. This rally is crucial to the fight, not only for the British Rally Championship and holding on to second, but keeping ahead of the two SJR cars with Gwyndaf Evan and young Stuart Jones in the Evo Challenge. But fingers crossed, we think we’ve got it now.
Q:
Speaking of the Evo Challenge, have you started thinking about the prospect that next year you could have a works Mitsubishi Motors UK drive if you win the Evo Challenge. It’s the biggest prize in British rallying.
JM:
It’s never over until it’s over as Gwyndaf will tell you. The thing that’s frustrated us this year is the SupeRally rule [where competitors can return to the rally after missing stages and still score points]. I know there’s a lot of people talking about whether it should be there, but if we were to go back to the good old days, when to finish first, first you must finish, we’d be well in the lead.
