British Columbian motorcycle rally racer, Don Hatton has finished in fourth place in the Enduro class in the 2009 NPO Shamrock Rally de Maroc / Rally of Morocco.

The Rally of Morocco was run over six days, and covered 2650 kilometers in total distance with nearly 2000 kilometers of that under race conditions. Through rock, sand, dunes the size of small office buildings and scorching heat in 40 degree Celsius range Don Hatton pushed through the mental and physical challenges of the rally to his fourth place finish and a class field of 10 entrants.

According to Mr. Hatton, the fourth place finish did not come as a disappointment, “I just could not overcome the time difference between myself and third place [Lambert Wery] the only way I could have caught him was for him to have a problem. I did catch up and pass him at one point in the Rally only to loose the gain when we hit a really rock stretch forcing me to slow to a snails pace.”

“I am not disappointed with my finish in anyway, I had to really dig in and work to achieve what I did, my navigation went very well. I did make a couple of minor navigation errors but nothing serious, my only real problem in the Rally was the limits created by the lack of suspension on the stock KTM690 Enduro. I believe with better suspension I could have won my category.”

“I can tell you I was longing for my dakar bike, as it would have been in its element on this course. The 690 Enduro is a good bike, but the thing that most people don’t know about it is that in order to get a lower seat height on it, they [KTM] simply cut back on the suspension travel 25% to only 8 – 9 inches of stroke.”

“I was a little caught off guard by the heat in stage 2 however after a short rest in the desert I recovered enough to finish well that day. After that I wore a few less Items of clothing.”

“In any case I did finish and finished in a respectable position.”

For more information: http://www.destinationdakar.com
Rally Results: http://www.npolive.com/maroc2009/en/resultats.php