It was a solid start to the 2025 Australian Enduro Championship for KTM DM31 Racing Team owner/rider Daniel Milner in Kempsey, the Victorian able to bounce back from defeat at the hands of rival Wil Ruprecht to even the playing field come Sunday afternoon. MotoOnline caught up with Milner to Check In and get his take on the weekend and a range of topics.

Image: Foremost Media.

Daniel Milner, take us through your weekend in Kempsey. Some tight racing for you up front all weekend long, how was it?

Yeah I guess the recap was she was bit of a hectic one, to be honest. Just the lead up was probably the most stressful part. Obviously, it’s not as easy for me anymore, being a team manager. I’m not just worried about myself and showing up to the races and my personal performance, it’s kind of making sure Jonte [Reynders] and Korey [McMahon] are ready to rock and roll as well as myself, so it was it was a little bit stressful with that. I think it was two weeks out from round one that Korey snapped his ACL, so that was that was definitely not a nice news to hear at the time, then I think it was only two days later Jonte broke his foot. So yeah, that was definitely not the best lead up, but their performance over the weekend was was unbelievable. I’m absolutely stoked with how they performed with their injuries, then on my side, it was cool to be back racing too. Obviously, the last time I raced I was injured, so for me it’s been a pretty hectic off-season trying to build the shoulder back up and make sure that the body is doing what I need it to do. I’m not getting any younger, so I have to focus on the body a fair bit more than what I did when I was a little bit younger and I could hit the ground and bounce a bit more. So it was a hard off-season, but it was good to get rounds one and two done and see where we’re at. Obviously Wil Ruprecht coming home is really good for the sport. It was close battling all weekend, I think the last time I was able to go into the last test that close to someone was back when Chucky [Daniel Sanders] was still here racing, so it was really good to have someone there to push me, andfor me to push him. The first day, he got the upper hand on me and and beat me by eight seconds, and then the second day I came out a little bit more fired up and returned the favour and won the day by about three seconds. I think it was roughly an hours worth a racing, so yeah it’s definitely quite tight racing to finish that close at the end of the day and I think it’s gonna be a pretty pretty exciting championship. I’m looking forward to getting myself and body to where it needs to be to make sure that we’re as strong and as fast as we can be.

One of the major talking points entering 2025 was the rebranded series, now known as the Australian Enduro Championship. What were your thoughts as a whole after your first experience?

To be honest, I was really happy. Last year, I was very disappointed with the social media side of things and the promoting of the events. We went to a lot of rounds and the towns and the locals around the area didn’t even know that we were racing there. I tried to kind of pump it up a little bit myself on my own social media last year and promote that we were there racing. But to see this year, they’ve got Danny Ham now, which you know, the bloke’s a legend, he’s been around the sport for so long. He’s got so much knowledge along with being able to connect with the riders really well. It’s really good to see what they’re doing with the promotional side of things. The championship itself, it seemed a little bit more relaxed than what it has been, and I think it’s just being ran better. I think that was the biggest thing. There were a lot of riders [in Kempsey], so I think our sport is growing, especially since covid, because it died off a lot there and now it seems like everyone’s coming back. It’s only going to get better, that’s for sure. And on our side with my team, building it back to where it used to be, I think if we can keep promoting the racing and the new Australian Enduro Championship, it’ll only keep getting bigger and bigger, and get us Aussie riders back to being some of the best in the world like we like we used to be.

Image: Foremost Media.

Format-wise on the weekend, we saw some last minute changes and it was back-to-back days of sprints. What were your thoughts there?

Yeah, to be honest, when I first heard that it wasn’t going to be cross country because of all the rain that Kempsey had been getting, I was like, ‘Jesus it’s a bit of a strange one.’ But obviously, once we got there and saw the conditions, obviously the decision was made from the inspector who’s been around sport and races for so long now, so he knows what’s going on, it was 100 percent the right decision. The track had the low-lying stuff that was really good dirt, but then as soon as you went into the bush – which I’d say was nearly 80 percent of the track – it was just powder and bull dust. It was that kind of soil that didn’t soak up the moisture that well, and the wind and trees dried it out real quick. There’s no way it could’ve been a three-hour with the dust, so it was the right decision, obviously. It does get a little bit old doing sprints, because that’s all we seem to do. It’ll be cool to mix it up a little bit and hopefully we can do some different formats here in the future, but I mean, it is what it is. A sprint is the easiest and the safest way to go about it when the conditions aren’t up for it. So yeah, we did everything we could to make it happen, and they do everything they can to keep us riders safe.

Talk to us a little bit about your bike of choice for this season. You’re on the KTM 450 XC-F as opposed to the 450 EXC-F, what was the reason behind that decision making?

There are a few little different things about it, and that’s kind of why I’ve gone down that path. I believe that the XC-F suits Australian conditions a lot more, whereas the EXC-F suits more the European style riding, where it’s tight single track, more gnarly rocks, and everything like that. Also, it’s got a linkage on the XC-F, so I’ve got a bit more travel in the rear shock as well. The frame is very similar, well it’s the same frame as the SX-F, which has a few more cut outs than what the EXC-F does and it has a lot more flex. So as a rider that’s something that I’ve picked up, I’ve been around the sport for a long time and I have a lot more feel for the motorcycle now, so it’s about making sure that the bike has got the flex in the off-camber and technical terrain. That would be the biggest thing for me and why I’m enjoying this bike so much.

Thanks heaps for your time today mate. Good luck for the rest of the season, I’m sure we’ll be chatting again soon!

No worries, cheers mate.