LANCASTER Honda's rally team had a difficult outing in the Jack Frost stages at Croft, near Darlington.

With regular co-driver Chris Thomas out of action, Paul Mount was secured as a last minute replacement just before Saturday's event.

After promising testing at Ty Croes, Anglesey the week before, Paul and driver David Cox went into the rally full of optimism.

But with stage times never really on the pace, the team fell to a frustrating gearbox fault which eventually put them out of the rally on the seventh stage.

The fact that the car got even that far is testimony to the hard work of service crew Phil Davis, Dave Townson, Ben McKnight, Craig Thompson and Ben Sutton, who performed miracle in difficult conditions.

The team's next event is to be announced shortly.