WHAT’S IN THE WORKSHOP – MILLDUN MOTORSPORT

What’s in the Workshop – Milldun Motorsport

As restrictions begin to ease across the country, motorsport teams are eagerly awaiting the notification that events will return to racing.

By HEATH McALPINE

This latest instalment of What’s In The Workshop ventures not far from the Auto Action office in metropolitan Melbourne to Milldun Motorsport.

First coming to prominence due to its involvement in S5000 alongside Barton Mawer and taking over the Subaru program in TCR Australia, Milldun is a team that also competes in rallying, historic racing and much, much more.

“We’ve got heaps going on,” team owner Liam Dunn told Auto Action. “At the minute we’ve got 48 cars across our two workshops.”

The team’s S5000 is prepared and ready to go after a short run at the Australian Grand Prix where inroads were made in the chassis set-up thanks to its participation in other classes of racing.

“There’s the S5000 of course, we can’t wait to get back out there in that category, it is just awesome,” Dunn enthused.

“We’re finding that through competing in a wide array of classes, changes can be adapted from one category to another. An example of this came about when testing the S5000 at the Grand Prix where we implemented a change from one of other programs, but we haven’t really exploited it yet.

“We know it’s going to benefit us, but we didn’t know it was there and I don’t think without running other programs we’d learn it.”

Milldun has just completed repairs to the MARC Mazda 3 V8 that it runs for owner Tony Groves after an accident in the Combined Sedan races as support to the Bathurst 12 Hour.

A further expansion into Super2 is also planned.

On the rallying side, a fresh arrival is a Ford Fiesta R5 imported from Europe that will contest selected rounds of the Australian Rally Championship. While a returning champion is being aided by Milldun to return, an exciting prospect no less.

“The AP4 Mini of Eli Evans in the workshop, that’s a bit quiet at the moment, but it will be competing again at some point, which is exciting,” Dunn said.

The historical side of the team is just as busy featuring projects mainly focused on Australian designed and developed sports cars, one of which is a Norax Group C C2 sports prototype.

“We restored a Group C Norax and it was a part of the demonstration at the Bathurst 12 Hour,” Dunn explained. “It was the first time the client had ever driven it after a five-year restoration and we’re really proud of how it came out.

“It’s a gorgeous car.”

Also, in the workshop is the Molina Monza built by Lou Molina in 1957, which is surrounded by a variety of Bolwells and JWSs.

Another piece of Australian history is currently undergoing a complete restoration, the Globe Wheels Ford Escort BDA.

“There are a few jobs that have come about because clients feel this is the right opportunity to get jobs completed, one of these is the famous Globe Wheels Ford Escort,” said Dunn

“It’s a Mark I BDA Escort run as a production car by the Globe Wheel Company then it went through subsequent owners including Garry Rogers, who raced it as a sports sedan.

“It’s quite an iconic car.”

With a steady stream of projects, the team hasn’t downsized and are instead aiming to expand its workforce by at least one.

“We’re currently looking for one maybe two staff members at the moment,” said Dunn

“We did a fairly big restructure in terms of everyone has their own designated work areas, we’re quite fortunate we have a bit of space across two premises so we can space the team out. We haven’t needed to stagger work, which is good.”

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