The planning and hectic schedule associated with the Christmas Holidays are all behind us now. Don has arrived in Argentina!

Don met with the Canadian Ambassador to Argentina Timothy Martin and Deputy Ambassador Steve Hawley. They along with embassy staff provided Don with a lot of assistance after his crash in Dakar 2009.

Today, December 29, is scrutineering day for Dakar 2010. Don will be making his way through over 18 of the technical inspections by himself, if that's not enough to stress him out we don't know what is.

Speaking of stress, in conversations before departing Don admitted to being somewhat nervous about this years race. Its not last years crash, or the lack of time on his KTM 690 Rally bike that concerns him. It's the dreaded sand and DUNES. Miles and miles of big, energy sapping, soul destroying dunes.

The inside scuttle on this years route, is that the organizers have tried to make it tougher than last years.

For one of the stages they are allowing the competitors 36 hours to finish!!. Can you image it. You've been beating your body up for days and now you have a stage that could take up to 36 hours to complete. Wow! I guess the organizers weren't happy with a finish rate of 27.6% in 2009. They want to spend less on finishing medals this year.

Stay tuned, we will get links up to the Dakar tracking information soon and provide you with an e-mail address you can use to send Don your best wishes.

Its gonna be a good one.

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.

We hope to get an additional update from Don or Natalie later today so check back later.

As we reported yesterday, Don and the bike both made it through scrutineering. There were a couple minor issues, such as whether his Olympia Jacket met the regulations or not. But by the end of the day he had gotten through and was a happy camper.

The next challenge was to source engine oil and tires and mousse. Elf came through with enough oil for the race, a big thumbs up to Elf. Don managed to find some tires and mousse. However he will need to find more in order to finish the race.

Natalie reports that yesterday was a long day through scrutineering ... but exhilarating at the end! The best feeling really for all of us. All the organizers we dealt with yesterday were very pleasant. The Argentines are warm people, the food has been great and the weather is picking up (raining and thunder storms for the first few days), but hot yesterday and today (Dec 31). When Don rode his bike from the Docks to downtown (about 1 1/2 hours) it was pouring.

The locals came out in full force Wednesday afternoon. Max and Natalie were left at the Dakar site and it took them ages to thread their way back to the Hotel on the street.

Natalie also reports that they have run into many familiar faces as well. Javier and Sandra who own DakarMotos in Buenos Aires and have been very helpful to Don and the team over the last two years and lots of other people from different teams that they recognize from last year or other rallies - "it's truly wonderful".

Don had a chat with Marc Coma as well yesterday and told him (joking of course) that now that Don had a factory bike, and Marc does not, he plans on passing Marc this year. Of course Marc found that quite funny for some reason.

Don will be in good hands again this year, as his favorite Rally doctor, Alain, is once again in attendance. Alain has attended 15 Dakars as a medic and he loves it. He told Don that he thinks the Argentina/Chile course is far more dangerous than any of the African courses have been.

Hopefully Don will not need to talk to Alain or any other medical staff before the end of the Rally. However he still has a nagging cough left over from his bout of the flu earlier this year and that will not help as the rally wears on.

The weather around Buenos Aires has been unseasonably wet so far this year, with wide ranging floods causing heavy damage. The organizers are reporting that some sections of the course will be quite muddy. At least that will give the riders a break from all the dust they encountered last year. Not that they won't get their fair share of dust in the dessert and dunes.

Don and the team will be hosting a small New Years Party for some of the other teams and then the real fun begins.

Don is going to focus on his navigation and road book work, just like in Morocco. He says that previous rally's have really driven home the point that you have to finish to do well, and the best way to finish is to stay on course, not get lost, and be very aware of the hazards on the course. Hopefully the results for Dakar 2010 will be just as good as in Morocco 2009.

Well, nothing is ever easy at the Dakar, especially for competitor #73 Javier Pizzolito. A short time before he was to depart the Parc Ferme his bike suddenly caught fire. Of course this added a bit of excitement to Don's day as he was parked very close to Pizzolito and had to push his bike away before the flames spread. Apparently it was so close that the flames were almost touching his leg. The fire department arrived fairly quickly and doused the flames before any other equipment was damaged. According to on-line sources the damage was fairly significant and Pizzolito will not be able to continue in this years Dakar.

After this bit of excitement Don started the race. In the accompanying pictures you can see his helmet camera getting a close inspection from the officials. We are not sure if Don was able to keep the camera on or not since some additional pictures show the camera in place, and others show it missing. We hope Don gets some good footage.

So he's off. Today's stage is only a 317 km liaison to Colon, so no real racing, it just gets them out of the city and ready for tomorrow.

Don made it into Colon by about 8PM. It was hot out there and hard to get around because the crowds were plugging up many of the roads. Don's not to impressed with the food at the Bivouac, nor the swarms of mosquitoes that have shown up thanks to the recent rains.

Don is doing his road book now (around 9PM local time) and will then head to bed as he needs to be up at 4AM for a 5AM start.

Thanks to Brice and Mrs. Brice of ADVRider for the pictures on this page.

Listen to the clip above of Don on Rally Radio, he sums Day 2 up pretty well.

The audio starts with Don's account of the fire he was exposed to on Day 1 of the rally. We think we would have run from the flames as well Don.

The second part of the audio details Don's comedy of errors today, except that it wasn't very funny.

First he 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.

The organizers were not going to give him the start card, much back and forth discussion ensued, ... Don said "what does this mean" and the woman organizer told him that he was out - the rally was finished for him. Still Don would not give up ... so more discussion ... then they phoned the head of the FIM and after much phone conversation he ruled that Don could start.

The Dakar organizers argument was that it was too dangerous as the cars were now leaving and also that Don would not make his start time at the special stage. Don told them that it was their member of the organization that had directed him to start and that he was a fast rider and could make it to the special section for his start time.

So... off he goes... he gets to the special just in time to start and at this time they hand him two papers. Don only has time to read the first one. Apparently what the 2nd one said was that due to the heavy rains they had to reroute. They verbally told everyone else, but as he was just in time to start they didn't actually tell him. Don knew something wasn't right, but couldn't figure it out...What he was supposed to do was change his road book by 50kms!!! At about 100kms in he did finally get himself straight (heaven knows how) and he finished the stage. However, not before he had to ride through water on his bike and his bike quit!!!! He got to the finish and he and all the Desert Rose Team had to wait in all their dirty, sweaty gear for the support truck to show up.

Later in the afternoon, they are all sitting around doing road book and in strides the head of the FIM (apparently he was in Buenos Aires and came out to speak with Don). He spoke very strongly to him about starting without his time card and that this must not happen again...and if so it would be an immediate disqualification. Apparently all the Desert Rose guys were very worried he had come to tell Don he was out of the rally.

Don actually rode the course very well today but we think that he was assessed some pretty hefty time penalties over the time card fiasco as he is currently listed in 133rd place but earlier reports had him finishing in the middle of the pack. Hopefully tomorrow is a better race day for Don. However Don is actually quite happy with the penalties, compared with being kicked out of the rally, its not so bad.

Don continues to be unimpressed with the food in the Bivouacs. There was no breakfast today so he had to resort to his emergency instant porridge rations that he carries to every rally. For dinner they had lovely Argentinean Pepperoni Sausage which Don simple describes as disgusting.

Unfortunately Don's troubles were minor compared with an unfortunate accident involving one of the cars running off the course and plowing into a group of spectators. One spectator was killed and 4 injured. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims.

Believe it or not the picture to the left (from Reuters News Agency) is not the worst thing that happened to Don in the last 24 hours!

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".

Don was up all night with bad stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhea. "He said you cannot imagine what it is like to have to vomit in the bivouac toilets!" I say TMI Don!

Even so Don left this morning but his Iritrack (tracking system) was not working. He told the organizers who said not to worry it would work. It was clear that it wasn't working, it would turn on but then kept turning itself off. Don wanted to make it clear that it wasn't working so at EVERY check point he told the organizers it wasn't working. He is concerned that not having Iritrack could result in a disqualification from the race so he needed to make sure they understood it wasn't working.

Don had 2 big crashes today and says his 690 is well worn in. At around kilometer 20 he had a huge crash and was down for about 1/2 hours (he thinks). Ripped his pants wide open. He didn't realize how heavy the 690 was to pick up. Then just before the end of the special his front end went out from under him as he was crossing water. Apparently there was a lot of algae in the water and his bike literally slipped out from his hands. We are not sure which crash the photo above is from, but it looks like he had some luck today anyway, a few feet closer and that car would have made short work of the 690!

From looking at the picture, its not clear if Don still has his number bib on, is it just covered in mud or did it come off. If Don continued without his number bib that could be another grounds for disqualification.

Don has also been at the organization tent fighting his time penalties that have already added up to more than 1 1/2 hours.

Don's final comment was "Just remember I am riding this for a finish not a win".

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.

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.

Eventually we had word from Natalie that Don had arrived back at the Bivouac. However it seems that he and most of the other riders listed as withdrawn, had to cut the stage short, in effect disqualifying themselves from competing in the rally.

At one point Don and British rider Duncan Tweedy were visited by a Doctor on the course. Apparently Duncan had briefly passed out due to the heat, the temperature was about 45C. The Doctor told them that there were no helicopters available to evacuate them since there were so many people stuck in the Dunes. The Doctor also said "you should not go on - you will die in the dunes, but if you leave the course now, there is always next year".

This evening in the bivouac Don is still really sick with stomach cramping and diarrhea. The only reason he is not throwing up is because he is on anti-nausea medicine.

We hope to update this report later on and say that Don gets to ride another day, but that is probably just wishful thinking.

Don, while your dream may have been cut short this year, your team and supporters are very proud of you for what you have accomplished. If you don't get to race again in Dakar 2010, at least this year you will be healthy enough to enjoy Argentina. Thanks for the experience.

The three links below provide some insight as to the conditions on stage 3. Watch the videos in order, at the start of the second one you will be amazed at the large number of cars that are stuck in such a small area.

In car video from stage 3

Video from outside car, after crash

SBS blog entry on Stage 3 conditions