Team Rally Raid Canada > Rally Racer Don Hatton

Greetings Team Rally Raid Canada fans:

I am writing this from Buenes Aires where I am waiting the arrival of my team.

Thought I would let you know how I feel about no longer being in the Rally, I was very upset and was unable to comment earlier.

In short I am angry and very sad at the same time, the Dakar Rally is an event where everything has to go in your favor in order to finish, unfortunatley this year I was not so lucky.

It seems that nothing went my way, right from the beginning; with three months to the Dakar I broke my hand, my bike arrived 1 1/2 months late to Canada, I contracted the swine flu and had to deliver the bike for shipping while very very sick, my tire order not arriving at all.

I think the Dakar Gods were sending me a message and I was not receiving it.

At risk of sounding like I am feeling sorry for myself here is a summary of my 2010 Dakar Rally.

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Following his Dakar experience, Don provided the following audio update:

Don’s post-Dakar report, courtesy of RallyRadio

At the moment Don is listed as one of 14 riders that have withdrawn from the rally in stage 3! We expect that number to climb. UPDATE: As of 10:20PM PST, that number has grown to 20.

For those of you who have been trying to track Don on-line it has been a frustrating day, from all reports it has been far worse for Don.

Don had another bad night and day with his stomach problems but made it to the start of the special stage this morning.

However shortly into the stage Don fell victim to bad gasoline in his tank. This same problem afflicted many riders including favorite Marc Coma. Don persevered for a long time, but this stage has been described by many as one of the toughest they have ever encountered in any rally! The sand was really tough and it was incredibly hot. Don and many other riders were forced to ride in first or second gear as that was the best their engines could do on the foul gasoline.

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Don is back at the Bivouac, after another difficult day.

In the first sector of the Rally, Don began having engine problems. I have seen numerous mentions of fuel problems today, and Don was unfortunately one rider who was affected. Riding in the dunes requires speed and momentum to carry the bike and rider to the top of each dune, and even a hiccup out of the motor can sap that momentum and leave the rider stuck and turning the bike around to retreat down the dune and far enough back to take another run at it.

Dave will likely be bringing us another update later this evening, and I will post an update here as soon as more information becomes available.

Don called in to Natalie from the Bivouac hospital hooked up to an IV for dehydration and anti nausea medication. He got food poisoning last night from the bivouac food – Don says a whole bunch of guys got sick. The food is absolutely disgusting! Don has had nothing to eat all day, he has been trying to get water down, but faster than he was drinking it, he was losing it one way or another!.

Doctors who remembered Don from last years Dakar were coming up to him and asking him how he was doing, and how was his wife. Natalie told Don he should have said “EL LOCO (crazy!!!) to let me do the Dakar again”.

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No word from the front lines yet, but Don has successfully completed Stage 2 of the rally.

Don, this was undoubtedly an eventful day, and your flair for the dramatic is certainly garnering lots of fans (and bandwidth!) over at ADVRider.

In the picture at right, Don runs to retrieve his KTM, with Mark Miller bearing down on him in his Team Red Bull Volkswagen. This spot was a shallow water crossing over a weir, where many riders were caught out by the extremely slippery surface.

As for the specific results, Don finished the stage ranked 141, and was assessed 1:34 of penalities. Today was a bit of a nail biter for Hatton fans; according to the tracking on the dakar.com website, Don didn’t appear to pass the second checkpoint.

Obviously, something went awry today. Perhaps the situation with the second checkpoint had something to do with the penalities, or they may have been assessed due to Don’s time card incident. Stay tuned for more details.

Stage 3 – La Rioja > Fiambala Monday, January 4

• Liaison : 259 km
• Spéciale : 182 km
• Liaison : 0 km
• Total : 441 km

The white pit

It’ll be on the third real day of racing that the competitors will have to deal with a first test. The change of context will be radical: with a switch from earth to sand and especially a dune portion of close to 30 kilometres. Other than their dimension that suits perfectly a first part of rally, these dunes are noticeable thanks to their white colour. In this new landscape, the crews will enjoy off-piste. They will also have to adapt to a change of climate and especially sand storms that are frequent in the area.

Team web guy Dave O’Sullivan, who has been writing most of these updates and posting them on the legacy site (www.destinationdakar.ca), supplies us with more details on Don’s day.

Early this morning, Don left the start area without his time card, which he didn’t realize until he was flagged down by another competitor after about 80km. He had to race back to the start to get his card, but it wasn’t that simple.

When organizers indicated they were not going to give him the start card, much back and forth discussion ensued. Don asked “what does this mean” and the organizer told him that he was out; the rally was finished for him. Don refused to give up, so more discussion, then they phoned the head of the FIM and after a lengthy phone conversation he ruled that Don could start.

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