Team Rally Raid Canada > Rally Racer Don Hatton

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.

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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