Malton Motor Club member Jonny Milner cracked open the champagne on home soil to celebrate his second successive British Championship after finishing runner-up in the Trackrod Rally Yorkshire yesterday.

Local hero Milner, from Huggate, near Pocklington, had spent most of the two-day North York Moors-based forest event keeping a watching brief in his Team Dynamics Toyota Corolla WRC, safe in the knowledge that he only needed a top-nine finish to put the title out of his rivals reach with a round to spare.

"It would have been nice to have won the rally but the championship was more important," said the ecstatic Yorkshireman, before thrilling several hundred people crowded around the finish ramp.

Highlighting his and the car's amazing consistency, Milner continued: "It was pleasing to finish second as that means we've now been on the podium in every British Championship rally in the last two years."

Milner and Welsh co-driver Nicky Beech's successful title defence was rarely in doubt as the 2002 Trackrod winner, despite going fastest on the first two tests on Saturday, allowed Finn's Tapio Laukkanen and Jari Matti Latvala to dominate the opening leg.

The Scandinavian duo won all six of the remaining stages between them before returning to Ryedale's biggest town, Malton, for the overnight stop with less than six seconds separating them.

Former British champion Laukkanen's slender advantage was swiftly wiped out by teenage sensation Latvala as soon as the action resumed early yesterday morning.

The 18-year old Ford Focus pilot was a staggering four seconds quicker than Milner over barely half a mile through the Pickering Showground stage, six faster than Laukkanen, to assume the lead.

Again it was short lived as Latvala's Ford Focus WRC then promptly went straight on at a tightening left hander during the 11-mile Langdale forest stage and spent over a minute getting the car free of the tree stump it came to rest on.

Laukkanen seized his chance and went on to win the rally by 48.6 seconds, with Milner, who also leapfrogged over the temporarily stranded Latvala, in second and the talented young Finnish charger third, a further 38.4 seconds adrift.

Irishman Kris Meeke clinched the Super 1600 crown by driving his Opel Corsa to maximum points in the class, after long-time leg one leader Gwyndaf Evans (Dolgellau) retired with a broken gearbox on Stage 8.

A late charge from local hero Steve Bannister failed to stop Carnaby's Richard Watts taking the honours in the Trackrod National Rally, which ran behind the main event on Saturday.

Malton farmer Bannister, three times Trackrod winner during the eighties, finished a mere three seconds behind fellow Escort driver Watts after 65 competitive miles.

Chesterfield's Steve Perez led from start to finish in a mid-sixties Porsche to win his class in the Trackrod Historic Cup, so all but mathematically making sure of taking the British Historic title.

Gloucestershire driver David Stokes claimed overall success after Welshman and fellow Ford Escort RS1600 driver Richard Gower was denied victory, despite going fastest through the stages, by a timing error - eventually picking up a five-minute penalty and being relegated to 16th.

Extending the weekend of success for Yorkshire drivers, Driffield's John Bannister claimed a comfortable 33-second victory in the ever popular Trackrod Clubman's Trophy Rally, which involved a further 60 cars over Sunday's closing six stages.

Escrick driver Ollie Marshall finished sixth in the Peugeot 206 Supercup.

Updated: 11:38 Monday, September 29, 2003