Daughter's message to Dakar Rally dad (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Daughter's message to Dakar Rally dad

7:00pm Wednesday 9th January 2013 in News

EAST Lancashire rally driver Justin Birchall has received a touching good luck message from his daughter as he tackles one of the world’s most gruelling races.

Justin, who runs Birchall Foodservice on Hapton’s Network 65 Business Park, will today embark on stage five of the prestigious Dakar rally.

He was lying 110th out of 182 competitors after three gruelling stages of the event.

Yesterday he tackled one of the toughest stages of the event in Peru, doing almost 700kms from Nazca to Arequipa. Today the 450km stage sees the participants leave Peru, with the stage ending in Chilean border town Arica.

Support for Justin, and co-driver Cpl Tom Neathway, has been flooding in on Twitter.

Yesterday his daughter Alicia posed for a picture with a banner saying ‘Daddy and Tom My Super Heroes’.

Justin, from Burnley, is one of four drivers partnering members of the armed forces severely injured in combat as part of the 28-strong Race2 Recovery team.

Speaking before the race, the dad-of-three said: “I’m humbled to be part of the Race2Recovery team.

“The Dakar is a childhood dream that’s coming true. The main difficulty is getting stuck in the sand. It’ll be up to me to get out. But being at the start is an achievement in itself.”

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