THE results might show that Nigel Worswick failed to finish last weekend's Turkington Lurgan Park Rally.

But for most of the 10,000 spectators at the invitation-only event in Craigavon, County Armagh, he produced a performance that will linger long in the memory.

In a stunning display of precision, on-the-limit driving in his out-classed Ford Escort WRC, the Blackburn engineer forced his way into the top 10 - and was heading for at least a top five placing before his front suspension broke.

"Of course, it was disappointing not to finish, but I pretty chuffed with the times we were setting," said Worswick, who was navigated by Clive Molyneux, also from Blackburn.

"We knew we were up against some of the best tarmac drivers in Ireland, and that we were well behind in technology terms, but we thought that maybe we could close the gap with our performance on the stages."

And so it proved from the very first stage, with the pair producing a clean run to clock 10th fastest time from 45 starters.

Another attack on stage two moved them up to eighth fastest, depite getting slightly out of shape on two corners.

Worswick said: "The competition is so close that the most minute mistake costs places instantly. By the end of the second stage were were 0.1 seconds ahead of the ninth placed crew, and by the end of the third stage it went up to 0.2 secs!

By the time stage four was finished, Worswick and Molyneux had pushed their self-built Escort up to sixth, stunning the Irish regulars, including former WRC driver Niall McShea, who couldn't keep up in his Subaru Impreza S9.

"Stage six was next, and I spent the service break planning the attack in my head, mentally picking out the places where I knew I could make up more time," he explained.

"It was all going to plan until we we got out of line, only fractionally, and clipped a pile of tyres. The impact threw the car onto two wheels, fortunately without rolling it.

"The car dropped back down and we carried on to the end of the stage, dropping only a couple of seconds.

"But the impact had snapped the front suspension, and although we got across the flying finish to record a time, the car veered out of control, turning full right when the steering lock was on full left.

"With only five minutes lateness allowed, we simply didn't have time to get the car fixed and we had to retire there and then.

"Despite not finishing, we had a fantastic time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Hopefully, we repaid the organisers faith in inviting us and they'll let us come back again next year for another try!"