Team Rally Raid Canada > Rally Racer Don Hatton

Sidestands are both useless and unnecessary in the dunes.

The first 30 kms of the stage was very rocky initially with some bad cliffs – on edge of mountain with sheer drops of over 1000 feet and the road wasn’t any more than 8 feet wide- just wide enough to get the trucks up. Then it was some very fast gravel with huge washouts – entire sections of the road gone. 150km an hour sections and entire parts of the road missing. Then we had fech fech for about 6kms interspersed with sections of gravel and huge rocks. The last couple kms were small dunes with treacherous drops (that’s where David got hurt). Total distance for the special was 218 kms. Overall though I had a great day. My mechanic Bernie is starting to get my bike dialed in for me. Tomorrow (Stage 5) is going to be very hard … we have a 20km section of large dunes, in addition to that we have some small sections of dunes. It is going to be hot and tiring tomorrow plus we have 200kms of liason. ..Don

Well Don did make it to the start line today. However his issues were not restricted to just navigation equipment electrical problems!

Don described the course as “rocks, rocks, and more rocks and we’re not talking pebbles.” The Bike had a problem with the suspension on the first stage, it didn’t have any. Bernie was able to make it a bit better at the neutralization break which allowed Don to ride the second stage. Apparently after the race Bernie was still working on the suspension at 2AM Monday, local time.

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After a grueling day in the hot sun it looks like Don has all the stamps from scrutineering to participate in the Rally tomorrow.

Bernie and the bikes finally arrived late Saturday morning after Don had his administrative scrutineering. This really put him behind with scrutineering. On top of that Don’s bike had some serious wiring problems that took over 5 hours to repair. They are hoping that they don’t have any problems tomorrow… apparently it is all related to power to the navigation equipment.

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Don and Natalie made it to Zagora on October 23 after a 4 hour car ride with a manic Moroccan driver. The journey was along an extremely high, narrow winding road with no guardrails.

However, Don’s bike has not arrived yet. Apparently the ferry that the bike and mechanic Bernie were traveling on was delayed by bad weather off the coast of spain. Bernie and the bike arrived in Tangiers around noon on Friday. Read the rest of this entry →

Don Hatton, Cowichan Valleys own international motorcycle racer has entered the 2009 Morocco Rally set to start October 24, 2009.

“I’m glad to be racing again” Don says.

He was severely injured on stage 5 of the 2009 Dakar race held in Argentina in January 2009.

“I just recently got my medical clearance from the FIM – the governing body for motorcycle rally racing including the Dakar – and I am ready to get back racing”.

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