HUGGATE champion rally driver Jonny Milner is hoping his second visit to Barkston Heath this weekend will be more successful than his first.

Since the 2009 Toyota Sprint Series champion Milner’s title defence was challenged by an unfortunate gearbox malfunction at the RAF course earlier in the year, he has made significant changes to his Merlin International and Anglo American Oil Company Ltd 700 BHP Toyota Celica GT4 and is confident that the car will perform well tomorrow.

He said: “It’s a technical sprint track that suits the extreme Celica well and if the car performs as well as it did on the hillclimb at Goodwood, where I was only marginally beaten by a former F1 car, I will be very happy.”

The sprint at Barkston Heath is the fourth in a series of six races that make up the Toyota Sprint Series. Milner and his old adversary, Adrian Smith, are scrapping it out at the top.

Milner led at the end of round two, but a bad race at Sculthorpe saw him slip into second place – just six tenths of a second behind Smith in his Celica GT4.

The final round of the championship takes place at Tockwith on October 16.