Ballyhaunis rally driver Shane Buckley brought his Citroen C2R2 Max home in a fine eighth place overall on Sunday's Moto Midlands Stages Rally. As well as winning class six by nearly three minutes, Buckley and co-driver Thomas Maguire from Meath were the second highest placed front wheel drive finishers on the Rooskey based event. Indeed they had been as high as fifth overall before losing time on the last batch of stages with a wrong tyre choice.
Having entered the Midland Stages as a shakedown for this week-end's Circuit of Ireland Rally, Buckley will be confident of a strong result on the world famous Easter classic. The Circuit is the second round of the prestigious Citroen Racing Trophy Ireland Championship, and having finished third overall on the opening round in Galway in a lower specification C2R2, Shane has now upgraded to the more competitive C2R2 Max that the majority of his rivals are using. With the strong Midland Stages result under his belt, hopes are high for another top finish this weekend.
Also competing on the Midland Stages rally were Ballinrobe's Adrian and Aidan Fahy who were pleased to bring their Ford Escort safely home in 37th place overall.
Mayo Stages Rally On Television
The McWilliam Park Hotel Mayo Stages Rally will be shown on two separate television programmes in the coming week. On Easter Saturday morning, April 3, there will be a half hour programme on TG4 commencing at 11.55am. This programme will be repeated later in the week. Then on Tuesday April 6, Setanta Ireland will be showing the On The Limit Sports programme featuring the Mayo Stages at 10pm, with this show due to be repeated the following week.
