Rallye Le Touquet pas de Calais

Shane had his best ever result to date, on this seventh round of the UK Ford Racing Rally KA Championship taking fourth placed KA and also winning the Junior award for drivers of 23 or younger. The Junior award receives a cheque for �250 which Shane graciously passed on to the 2nd Junior, 19 year old Craig Middleton.

This was Shane's 4th visit to the UK KA Championship, the first being back in February in Bournemouth when he finished a creditable 10th. Boyzone committments kept him away from the drivers seat for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, and he only managed to complete 17 miles of the fifth round in Swansea before rolling his KA into a forest ditch. Round six saw the Ka's in Belgium in September where Shane put on a mature performance to finish in 8th place on a very tough event with over 25 Ka's to compete against. It was a great result for Shane, at last putting to rest the spectre of crashes which had haunted him - the most recent having been the spectacular one in Ireland.

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But in France last weekend (2/3 Oct) Shane proved to his peers that he can mix it with the best in some of the worst driving conditions seen all year. The two day French event based on the sea-front of Le Touquet was plagued by torrential wind and rain for most of the Saturday and Sunday morning - so much so, that the Sunday morning special stages were cancelled due to the French roads being washed away by tyhe flood water. But by lunchtime, the skies had cleared and the rally continued with our Boyzone star relishing his time behind the wheel. "It was a really superb weekend" he said afterwards with a broad grin on his face, "I've had a great time, and just want to thank everyone in the team who've supported me".

Shane came home on Monday, collected his new coutesy car from Ford on Tuesday - the super fast ST200 Mondeo, and will practice in a Legend Race Car on Wednesday morning in the midlands before returning to London in the afternoon for a Boyzone photo-shoot. On Sunday he will be racing the Old Spice Legend at Mallory Park in aid of "Whizz-Kids" a charity dedicated to caring for children paralysed with spinal injuries. The next opportunity to see the UK KA Championship will be in Shrewsbury on October 23rd when over 20 Ka's will fight it out to become the 1999 Champions. It will be Shane's last event of the year as he returns to Boyzone duties in November in readiness for the Boyzone Tour

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