Jatin competed in the Nationals (Moto) Road to Dakar category, paving way for budding rally racers in India to reach the notorious Dakar Rally, in a sport that believes in remaining off-piste. He chose a stock suspension Husqvarna 501, finishing 6th in the National Enduro Class, making it an impressive show for India.
The 6-day rally consisted of a Prologue and 5 special stages, seeing competitors covering more than 2400 kms with at least 1200 kms of selective selections, that took them fro Hermosillo to the border city of San Luis Rio Colorado, along the beautiful coast of the Cortez sea.
Jatin has conquered many rallies on the Indian scene, notable ones being Desert Storm, India’s own version of a cross country rally, held in the sands of the Thar, Dakshin Dare, Rally of Himalayas and Raid De Himalaya, to name a few. It’s not only the cross country that the champion has conquered, he has made his name in the Indian National Rally Championships ans Supercross Championship as well.
The Sonora Rally marks the 3rd Round of FIM World Rally Raid Championship’2023 (W2RC)
Jatin said, “The stages were long and temperatures soared upwards of 40 degrees during the day. We started our day 6 in the morning and reached the Bivouac by 5, which was our lunch time. The Nationals competitors start after the cars, which means we were left with pistes broken by the cards and cactus and fesh-fesh made the game more unpredictable. Every stage came with its own surprises-from lips cracks due to salty sea breeze and hands full of calluses making it impossible to hold the throttle., to bend handle bars and ruts made by the cars who had passed earlier, it was a test of both endurance and shill."