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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We just heard that Don has made it through the first hurdle of any major Rally, the scrutineering. Sounds like there were a few minor issues but nothing that couldn’t be overcome.

The next challenge will be finding enough tires and mousse. Don’s supply for both fell through in December and he has been searching frantically ever since to try and buy, beg, borrow, or, well not steal, them from were ever he can. If you have some sitting in you basement give him a call.

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 →

We know he made it to France. Scrutineering starts on Saturday October 24th so hopefully he is in Morocco now.

This years Shamrock Rally of Morocco has a record number of participants, 190, including 49 motorcycles. Don is lucky #14. For a complete list of entrants click here.

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