[Racer Duck]

Robby Gordon, driver of the No. 7 Jim Beam Ford Fusion in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, was scheduled to compete in the Dakar Rally this week until the race was cancelled due to terrorist threats. Gordon spoke about the cancellation prior to the first day of testing at Daytona International Speedway.

ROBBY GORDON -- No. 7 Jim Beam Ford Fusion: "From the time Homestead stopped to Friday at 1 p.m. Portugal time, I know the NASCAR team has been working on this side, but the off-road team and myself have been just slammed testing and working out all of our systems. We built a really neat little race car, actually not one of them but two of them, and to build those cars -- we have over a million dollars in each car -- we were built to win this year. We optimized every piece of the rules we could. When you knock 20 percent of the weight out of a vehicle in one season, you've made big strides. There wasn't any pieces of aluminum on the race car. Everything was carbon or Kevlar, and to have a race cancelled is a hard one to swallow. It puts us in a very precarious situation with our sponsors more than anything because, obviously, contracts have things like acts of God or terrorists and stuff like that, but you don't like to put your sponsors in that position either. They stepped up for a marketing program which was gonna go out there and perform at top level and don't even get the opportunity to do that. Obviously, we're trying to recover from it and figure out what we're gonna do to make some sense out of it for everybody and keep everybody happy. As far as contracts go, I think we're in OK shape as far as that goes, but it's not always about the contracts, it's about what's right and what's wrong and it puts us in a unique situation for sure."

Q: WHAT ABOUT THE RALLY?

RG: "I'm extremely disappointed in the ASO. I can completely understand their decision to not go to Mauritania or not want to put competitors in an awkward or dangerous situation. That I understand 100 percent, but for them -- with as many years as they've been doing this rally -- not to have a back-up plan, a B-plan, a C-plan, a D-plan -- if this was gonna happen. more...

[Racer Duck]

Robby makes several points in this interview that brings the event into perspective:

• 570 entries/teams, each team with 8-20 people
• $12K per person entry fee plus vehicles. said his entry fees exceeded $350K - said his outlay for the event around $4.5M
• the race was called while he was in line to be teched, many teams had already finished tech.
• 5000-6000 people (teams, etc) directly affected - no hotel, no air fare, no warning...
• the organizers had no back up plan, nor would they consider alternatives (shortening the event, etc.)

[Quality88]

Your RD, he makes some damn good points.