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Tommy Milner has been a key component of the Corvette Racing outfit for almost a decade now, Doug Fehan and Co’s attention drawn to the form of the young American aboard the BMWs he drove for his father Thomas Sr’s PTG concern and then the Panoz efforts at Multimatic and back to BMW (after a season aboard a Porsche) for Bobby Rahal’s team.

So BMW, Panoz, Porsche, back to BMW and then Corvette, but what comes out from that little lot as to his Best, Worst and Dream cars?

Best Car It’s really tough, there have been so many excellent cars.

First up I need to mention the Corvette C8.R, a huge step forward from anything that went before, a totally different experience from the C7.R which in itself was an awesome car but had come to the end of its development.

The C8.R though takes the game on, and there is a lot more to come from it.

We knew it was going to be good. We’d been driving it in the simulator for almost a year before I ever sat in the car.  It is pretty special to have been a key part of such an important car for the team and for Chevrolet, to be trusted to give so much input into how this car emerged will be something I’ll never forget.

It’s better in every single area than what came before, and let’s face it what came before was pretty good!

I’d like to mention the BMW I drove for dad’s team back in 2004. It was an M3, but based on the older factory GTR chassis, we didn’t have masses of power but it was a fantastic car to drive, amazing balance, easy to place just where you wanted to, I loved racing it, and it was just perfect for my style.

There were other cars out there with more of just about everything but I don’t remember a race in that car that I didn’t enjoy. It helped me to develop my racecraft in a Series that could be pretty busy at times.

One final mention, but it’s a car that while I have driven I  haven’t raced it.  Dad’s team would help to display and shakedown some of the BMW Heritage collection from time to time and I had the opportunity to driver their 1996 McLaren F1 GTR more than once.

“What a machine! way ahead of its time as a road car, and the race car was very close to its road car version, the power from that engine was amazing, and the sound – I can still hear it today when I think about it!

Worst Car With regret, it was the Panoz Esperante that I raced with Team LNT at Le Mans in 2007.  The car had won with the team the previous year and I guess hopes were still high (Tommy is seen below at the driver’s parade with team-mates Danny Watts and Tom Kimber Smith).

We had all sorts of trouble with that car, engine issues, handling problems, and the opposition had moved on, we were pretty much outclassed.

I’d driven for Panoz with Multimatic for a while and really we’d reached the limit of what the car could do.  Le Mans was not it’s strong suit!

Dream Car It’s not a particular car, but rather any car within a particular series, at a particular time!

The IMSA GTP Series in the early 1990s was just amazing.  The cars were spectacular, looked fantastic, had huge power and the racing was great too.

Whether it was one of the Nissans’ Jaguars, Toyotas, whatever I’d have loved to have had the chance to race any one of those in that Series.

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by Graham Goodwin 3 June 2022 0 Comments

by Graham Goodwin 3 June 2022 0 Comments

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