The day before it was to begin, the 2008 Dakar Rally has been cancelled by its organizers out of fear of terrorism. Mauritania is the specific region of concern right now, and eight of the rally’s sixteen stages were to have run through that country.
The route of this annual event, which varies each year, often travels through some politically unstable regions, and there have been incidents and stage cancellations in the past. This is the first time in the event’s history that it’s been called off altogether.
I support the judgement of the Amaury Sport Organization (which apparently made the call in response to specific threats against the event and strong encouragement from the French government), but lament that it’s necessary. I’ve always thought Dakar was a cool event.
ASO insists that the 2009 event will take place; the route choice will be interesting.
Yeah, Gordon was gonna try again. He brought a team of 2 Hummers, with Ronn Bailey driving the other one.
Pre-race technical inspections (a 2-day process considering the huge field) were well underway; around 10:00 AM on Day 2 they shut that down, and 2 hours later officially announced that the whole thing was off.
This wasn’t completely out of the blue: On December 24 four French tourists in Mauritania were gunned down on the side of a road, and a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda (surprise!) is thought to be responsible. Mauritania had committed 4,000+ soldiers to protecting the whole Dakar circus as it traversed the country, but apparently the French Foreign Ministry was getting more and more pointed in its advice to the ASO to stay the hell out of Mauritania.
I’d been gearing up to DVR the always-elusive Versus coverage.
This was going to be Mitsubishi’s final year running the Pajero/Montero Evolution in the Dakar and they were hoping to go out with an 8th consecutive win.
Shit, that’s three months of creating MMC promo materials down the drain. Hope we manage to get paid for some of it.
I know a few of the motorcycle competitors through another message board, and this has been a tremendous blow over there. It’s the small, amateur privateers that I really feel for. It costs close to $100,000 to run the Dakar if you do it on the cheap and unsupported, and sponsors aren’t exactly lining up to fund amateurs. Some of them have mortgaged homes, cashed out retirement funds, and put their lives and families on hold for a year to prepare for what is likely their one and only shot at Dakar, only to have the rug pulled out from under them at the last moment.
I’m afraid that last year may have been the last Dakar. It’s been running on borrowed time for a few years now and I think this will be the last straw.