Autosport, the main Portuguese motorsports publication has been releasing some news lately concerning the 2010 Dakar Rally and the fact that the race may be cancelled.

The reasons pointed for an eventual cancelation of the rally are:

-The H1N1 Flu (Argentina and Chile are two of the countries with the biggest numbers of cases), a local governor has already prohibited the caravan of the rally to go thru is state.

-The enormous financial difficulties of the Amaury Group (owners of the ASO). It looks like they have 121 million Euros in dept from past editions of the race. It's said the group is trying to sell the rights of the Dakar Rally to concentrate exclusevly on the Tour de France bike race.

-The low number of racers wanting to go to South America next year. The deadlines for teams to submit teir entries has been postponed to the end of September, 3 months later than what was supposed originaly.

-The big teams are going away, some of them are choosing the Africa race.

This is not to say that the race wont go on, but it doesn't look great for next year...