Cheraw, SC -- It was announced today by ASO, the group that organizes the world famous Dakar rally, that due to safety concerns for the competitors, the rally would be canceled. Reaction from clearly shocked competitors quickly spread throughout the globe.

Many of the competitors were standing in line at registration and technical inspection when all activity stopped. RallyRadio.net quickly posted phone conversations of competitors reporting in from the field. Johan Street, a contender for the overall win, reported that, "all, all of the competitors around here are in shock. It's just unbelievable."

News of the Dakar decision reached Anders Green, organizer of the Sandblast Rally, at approximately 10am EST. Within two hours, an announcement was made that free entry to Sandblast would be awarded to any motorcycle competitor who had been registered at Dakar.

"No other rally has the huge scope that Dakar does", said Green. "There's nothing that comes close to three weeks racing across the deserts of Africa. We're not trying to compare our event to Dakar. My heart really goes out to those guys, and I couldn't just stand around and be sad about it. I had to do something, so I figured, hey, we've got sand, if coming and racing here could take the sting out of the cancellation, it was my sporting obligation to let them as long as we had room."

There are very few places in the world where motorcycles can compete in a rally format. Last year NASA Rally Sport created RallyMoto�. RallyMoto� is NASA Rally Sport's trademarked program that allows motorcycles to battle each other in a stage rally format. Racing sections, called 'special stages' are linked by untimed 'transits'. Each racer starts the stage one at a time; there are no mass starts. The events which offer the RallyMoto� program do so in conjunction with rally cars.

Wilson von Kessler, close to the RallyMoto� program, commented, "What's happening with Dakar is very unfortunate. I'm sure that next year Dakar will be back in force, and until then NASA Rally Sport has a whole series of rallies for motorcycles to run." The Atlantic RallyMoto� Cup covers a wide variety of terrain and locations on the East coast of the United States.

Note to Editors:

• RallyMoto� is a trademarked program of NASA Rally Sport
• More information is available at RallyMoto.com
• More information on NASA Rally Sport is available at NASARallySport.com

For media support, please contact Anders Green.