HUDDERSFIELD man Mike Dann and his team have raced to a tremendous icy victory.

His ATP team stormed to victory in the Sony Polar Challenge - a gruelling 350-mile Arctic race to reach the magnetic North Pole.

Mike, 27, of Longwood, and his friends Simon Edmundson and Tim Tottenham, both 26, were in the lead for much of the race.

And they finished a stunning 15 HOURS ahead of their nearest challengers - a team with another local man.

Gosh It's Cold, including former Mirfield man Jonny Clayton, 34, had started the race dressed as Elvis Presley lookalikes.

The ATP team were being sponsored to raise cash for the Huddersfield-based Laura Crane Trust and they hope their efforts in the bleak Arctic weather will have raised about £10,000.

They planted a special flag in memory of Laura at the magnetic North Pole.

Fifteen teams took part in the tough Sony Polar Challenge, which began on April 16.

Jonny Clayton, who now lives in London, was with friends Alex Tate and Stephen Goodair, both from

Horbury, near Wakefield.

A spokesman for the organisers said: "Team ATP crossed the finish line at 03:15 yesterday, in a time of 11 days 15 hours and five minutes, after 24 hours of enforced checkpoint time was taken off their time.

"Team Gosh arrived in second place with Breaking Trail and ITV Arctic Seals all close behind them.

"Many congratulations on this fantastic effort from all!"

The weather was against all the contestants in the final hours of the challenge.

There was another "white out", with driving snow making progress slower and far more painful.

Engineer Mike Dann, who divides his time between Longwood and the Isle of Wight, went to Greenhead College in Huddersfield with Laura before she died from cancer in 1996, just days after her 17th birthday.

It cost him and his team £30,000 to fund their Polar adventure, but they did get corporate sponsorship as well as holding fundraising events.

Mike, Tim and Simon left the UK on April 4 and flew off to the town of Resolute in northern Canada.

Dann said at the time: "As well as learning the specifics of this environment and coping with temperatures which have so far been as low as minus 35 centigrade we have also learned to appreciate some appalling jokes.

"We have spent most of the last few days laughing.

"Unfortunately Simon has very mild frostbite on the end of one finger which was a warning to all of us to be more careful when operating in the cold and it is a lesson we will heed well."