AIMING for a place in the top five, Daniel Harper and Les Reger fufilled their ambition with a giant-killing performance on the Tour of Mull.

The Powerzone-backed pair stormed home fifth, despite giving away at least 100bhp in their Vauxhall Astra GSi to the leading contenders.

The result netted Daniel and Les a clutch of awards including the Bowland and 2300 Club Chairmans trophies, best Clitheroe DMC crew, and F2 runners-up.

As residents of East Lancashire, they should also have won the Lancashire Evening Telegraph trophy for highest-placed crew from the county.

But under the organisers rules, their fifth place automatically disqualified them from retaining the cup they won last year, which instead went to Belmont's Rob Barry, who finished seventh.

"In terms of overall positions, this is our highest result, and certainly the best on Mull," said Daniel, who works for the family firm of MiniSport in Padiham. "The weather remained dry all weekend, and that contributed to a phenomenally fast pace at the front of the field."

Despite the difference in power - their 175bhp Astra was pitched against a Subaru Impreza, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo4 and a Metro 6R4. Daniel and Les recorded top 10 times on 21 of the event's 22 stages.

Seeded at car 12, they were lying seventh at the first service and moved up through the field, particularly in the night sections, where high-powered cars had less of an advantage. On the penultimate, 22-mile long Loch Tuath/Calgary Bay stage, the duo were more than two seconds a mile quicker than Price, stopping the clocks 49 seconds ahead of the Metro man.

"Running so high up the order meant our concentration level had to move up a gear," explained Les, who works for Wesleyan Financial Services.

"But the switch from descriptive to numerical pacenotes made a big difference to our speed.

"Instead of calling the bends as fast or medium fast for example, we wrote or notes using a number system of 1-7 to describe the severity of the corners, and it paid off."

Daniel and Les are sponsored by Powerzone, a division of MiniSport, Padiham; Bridgehouse Car and Van Hire, Laneshawbridge; Millers Oils and Proflex.

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