Chilton’s own championship rally driver Michael Jenkins tells us about his inspiring journey so far
My love of rallying started at the age of 12. My parents bought me a remote-controlled car for my birthday; a blue Subaru Impreza with the name “Richard Burns” on the back windows. In November the same year (2001) Richard Burns became England’s first World Rally Champion. Little did I know at the time that Richard was local to me – just a stone’s throw away in Checkendon, and the team which ran his Impreza was the Prodrive outfit at Banbury.
Richard became my hero and I became obsessed with the sport. I begged my parents to take me spectating. I’ll never forget my first experience of seeing a rally car in action… stood in a damp, foggy, cold and damp forest in Wales with the sound of a rally car popping and banging in the distance echoing through the forest and then all of a sudden – BAM! – car comes into view fully sideways, gravel flying everywhere and disappearing off into the distance… I was hooked!
Richard’s death four years later hit me quite hard and as soon as it was announced that a charity would be setup in his name – The Richard Burns Foundation – I was there, volunteering and helping where I could. I was lucky enough to become good friends with Richard’s father, Alex Burns through my time at the charity. And it was Alex that really inspired me to get behind the wheel – something I’d wanted to do for a long time!
I remember standing in a barn full of Richard’s old competition cars, overalls, trophies and piles of rallying memorabilia when Alex got quite emotional and turned to me said “live every day like it’s your last, you never know what is around the corner” Those words really stuck with me and it wasn’t long before I was doing everything I could to get behind the wheel of a rally car.
At 22 I’d saved enough money to build my first rally car from an old Peugeot 205 road car with the help of my good friend, Colin Minton at Ignition Motorsport in Newbury. I competed in the 2012 & 2013 Tempest Rally, based in the forests around Aldershot. Alongside co-driver, Scott Dance we finished both events on a shoe-string budget, I didn’t even have enough money for a trailer so driving back home down the M4 in a muddy rally car after a full day of competition was a surreal experience!
I took a long break from competing after getting married, buying our first home in Chilton village and having two children (Fleur Rallye – yes her middle name is Rallye & Sebastien – named after nine-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb).
During lockdown I decided the rebuild my old Peugeot 205 rally car that had been sat for seven years since its last event and get back behind the wheel. I wanted to see how I would fare in competition after all those years and show my kids that your dreams can come true if you put in the work.
I competed in the Rally Nuts Stages based in Builth Wells, Wales in November 2021, an event which used many of the stages I’d watched as a child. To my surprise I’d ended up with a podium class finish in a self-built car – an extremely proud moment! Especially as I’m not a mechanic by trade and work in telecoms! The following year myself and my wife – Alexandra Jenkins – decided to compete in another type of rallying called Targa Rallying, a slower, more technical and much more budget friendly form of motorsport. With me driving and Alex navigating, we came away as class winners and novice champions, an amazing achievement considering the navigator has a much harder job than the driver and Alex has never sat in a competition car before in her life!
I continued to campaign the Peugeot in stage rallying along-side the Targa Rallying but after some disappointing retirements due to mechanical failures I decided to upgrade to a more professional, purpose-built rally car – an M-Sport Ford Fiesta R2 – which myself and friend, Colin from Ignition Motorsport drove to Sweden to collect.
2024 is my first full season along-side co-driver, Jordan Joines from Ellsmere Port and team-mates Colin Minton and co-driver Adam Westerby who compete in the top class in a Ford Fiesta R5, all of us under the Ignition Motorsport team based in Newbury.
We’re competing in the UK’s biggest gravel rally championships, The Protyre BTRDA Rally Series, The Pirelli Welsh Rally Championship, Reis Motorsport Insurance English Rally Championship and the TCS Rally Challenge. It’s been a struggle with budget, being completely self-funded we’ve had to make do with sleeping in the back of a van, using second-hand tyres and making them last for multiple events. Knowing that I can’t find the limit of the car has been difficult too, having to manage each event, both pushing and holding back when needed with a niggling reminder in the back of my mind that if I roll the car into a ball I simply won’t have the time or money to put the car right in time for the next event.
Having fought for sponsorship and failed, we decided not to run blank cars with no livery and support a local cider firm – Tutts Clump Cider. A family-run business that’s been hit hard by the financial impact of the lockdowns. We’ve been rewarded by our support with the launch of a special edition cider named after us “special stage” with a label that features both mine and Colin’s rally car which is pretty cool. We’re doing a great job at raising their profile and everyone is talking about them, our tongue in cheek marketing campaigns which can be found on our social media pages have had ten of thousands of views since the start of our season which is great for Tutts Clump and also great evidence for us when approaching sponsors. We’re also running a competition to win a case of ‘special stage’ cider and a passenger experience of a test day with us, check out our socials for more info on how to enter!
We’ve had an incredible first half of our season despite the budget challenges, with seven out of seven finishes including my debut on tarmac for the Abingdon CAR-nival Stages at Dalton Barracks with my wife making a guest appearance in the co-driver’s seat, an event that we didn’t take very seriously and treated as a day out but the result means that I’m currently the leading driver in the TCS Rally Challenge!
We have sealed the class championship in the Protyre BTRDA Rally Series with three rounds to go, 3rd in the Silver Star Standings (exclusively for 2-wheel drive cars) and 9th in the Fuchs Lubricants BTRDA Gold Star (all cars, including the counties best drivers in £250k+ machinery!)
We’re also leading our class in the Reis Motorsport Insurance English Rally Championship and 2nd in the Pirelli Welsh Rally Championship. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved so far this year, especially considering the teams we’re up against that can afford new tyres on each loop of each event with huge sponsorship support and much bigger budgets than us.
I’m passionate about sharing my rallying and motorsport experiences and knowledge with the younger generation and also spreading the word about the sustainability efforts that are being made in our sport, our governing body – Motorsport UK – who are based at the Bicester Heritage site have many initiatives to get younger people involved in all aspects of the sport, from volunteering and marshalling to competing and officiating. There are also lots of people putting efforts into sustainable bio-fuels and carbon offsetting initiatives which really mean a lot to me. I recently took my rally car along to my old school, St Birinus in Didcot where I gave a presentation to over 250 sixth form students and taking the car along to as many local shows such at the DISH at Harwell Classic car meet and Aces High car meet in Steventon.
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