CAN INJURED DAN MILNER CLAIM 2024 AORC TITLE?

Less than three weeks ago, KTM’s Daniel Milner was sitting pretty and rightfully confident he was well and truly on-track to wrap up the 2024 Australian Off-Road Championship (AORC) title – in both the E2 class and the coveted Outright standings.

Having won Saturday’s brutally rough three-hour cross-country at Round 9 of the 12-round championship in South Australia back on August 24, Milner had amassed a virtually unassailable 49-point lead in the AORC’s Outright standings. And that put the 33-year-old Victorian KTM DM31 Racing team owner/rider on the verge of closing out his fifth AORC Outright title win – a feat that would have tied Toby Price as a record five-time AORC Outright winner. All Milner had to do on Sunday in SA was earn one measly point more than his nearest rival in the Outright standings (2022 champ, Yamaha’s Kyron Bacon), and the 2024 title was his … with two rounds to spare!

But then the proverbial hit the fan. Suddenly. And in a big way. Early on Sunday in South Oz, Milner had a high-speed crash in the second of six Sprint-format tests and dislocated his shoulder – pretty badly, by all accounts. And try as he might to ride around slowly and salvage some points for the rest of the day, his shoulder kept popping out while riding, and he was forced to call it quits. And earn zero points! Come Sunday night, Milner’s 49-point Outright lead had been cut to just 24 points (according to our calculations, that is – see Transmoto’s 2024 AORC Outright Table below, after Round 10 of 12), while his E2-class buffer to second place, Sherco’s Jonte Reynders, was slashed to 26 points.

Ordinarily, you’d be right in saying that a 20-something-point margin going onto a series’ final two rounds was a pretty safe buffer. But there’s a couple of reasons why Milner is feeling anything but safe or confident as he heads into this weekend’s AORC series finale at Nowra on the NSW south coast. One: it’s been less than three weeks since he injured the shoulder, and he hasn’t been able to get back on the bike since. And two, rumours have it that Milner has had his shoulder operated on (a ‘temporary procedure’, aided and abetted by a few pins and/or anchoring screws, according to some sources), but is being strongly advised by docs and physios alike not to even think about racing with it at this premature stage of the recovery process.

After leaving a few messages with Milner this week, looking to get some clarity around his condition and plans to race (or not) this weekend, we finally got a short text back from him yesterday. As you’d expect, with so much at stake, he was playing his cards close to his chest. In DM31’s trademark up-front and economy-of-words way, he apologised for not returning our calls, and briefly confirmed he would be racing at Nowra. Milner then signed off with a classic understatement: “Is it okay if I give you a call after the weekend as I have a fair bit going on right now, to be honest”. By which he probably means around-the-clock physio and time in a hyperbaric chamber to speed up the recovery process and give him some chance of being able to ride – let alone race – his 450EXC-F this weekend.

So, will Milner be able to hold on grimly and wrap up another AORC title on the weekend at Nowra? We sure hope so, especially given the added responsibilities he’s taken on this year as team owner and rider. After Milner’s couple of frustrating seasons in the EnduroGP World Championship, it’s been awesome to watch the KTM rider’s mesmerizingly smooth and flowing style on Aussie tracks again. And, having won eight of the nine rounds he’s contested so far this year, he’s undoubtedly been the man to beat in the AORC. So, who would begrudge Milner the opportunity of equalling Toby Price’s long-standing record of five AORC Outright titles? Make no mistake; Milner is a student of the sport and acutely aware of the record books and what’s at stake this weekend.

PS: How crazy are the parallels between Daniel Milner’s predicament this year and that confronting reigning AORC champ, Josh Green, 12 months ago?! Remember last year … the 33-year-old Green just hung on to win the AORC’s 2023 title (in both E2 class and Outright), in spite of having title-threatening, late-season reconstructive knee surgery.