BOLTON-BASED GC Racing claimed a dramatic victory in the 24-hour Prokart race at Le Mans at the weekend - and then revealed their battered machine would have struggled to complete one more lap.

The Grange Construction racing team won the Clubman section of the race around the Circuit Alain Prost, beating off competition from around 20 other amateur teams.

And after 24 gruelling hours, their patched up kart made it home just 45 seconds ahead of the nearest rival.

Driver Stuart Hoyle said: "We had a fairly smooth run until about 11am, which was one hour before we were due to finish, when we had a mechanical failure.

"The chassis and axle started to split. We had a 12-lap lead before that happened, but we had to make repairs and when we came back out we were only one lap ahead. We bolted it back together and it just about held on.

"When it first came into the pits I thought that was race over but we did a good job. It wouldn't have gone any further."

There were six drivers who took it in turns in the kart. Hoyle, Rick Greenwood (both from Bury), Phil McVay (Bolton), 125cc British Superkart champion Paul Platt (Warrington), Dan Mizzi (Crewe) and Ollie Hycjk (Staffordshire) were at the controls of the £3,000, twin Honda-engine kart.