SSCommitted,

The same query on a test (VM) server run in less than 0.5 second. On a very well specified production server, anywhere between 40 and 140 seconds. No issue with lack of cpu, memory or i/o bandwidth. Just seems to be this issue with SQL deciding to spool out the record set to Worktable in tempdb. Logically, I would have thought that SQL Server would do this if it had to wait on a resource but, having examing waitstats, I can't conclude anything.

Clive