The 10th stage of the 2009 Dakar Rally saw another serious incident today, with Spaniard Christobal Guerrero being flown to a local hospital in a coma after an accident on stage.

The incident comes in the same edition of the rally that has already seen the death of one motorcyclist, Frenchman Pascal Terry. However, the same communication setup that may have helped save Terry's life, yet failed and may have ultimatly been part of his death, worked admirably well and have given Guerrero the best chance of survival.

An official press release from the Amaury Sports Organisatio (who organise the Dakar) details that Guerrero fell after 160km of todays 460km stage. His Iritrack - the emergency tracking beacon alerted officials to the accident at 12:38pm (local time) and a medical helicopter was on scene to rush the rider to hospital by 1:06pm. As a cynic it seems very deliberate that the ASO release these times after the Pascal Terry accident when it took over a day for news of the emergency beacon to reach officials in Argentina.

In better news the British pair Paul Green and Matthew Harrison, who crashed their car heavily on the rally's second stage, have both been released from intensive care and are expected to make a full recovery.

Today's car stage was won by overall leader Carlos Sainz, only 21 seconds ahead of Robby Gordon's Hummer after over 5 and a half hours of competitive stage. Sainz and Gordon swapped the lead of the stage several times after initial leader, Orlando Terranova rolled his car and was forced to withdraw.

Gordon remains 5th overall, 90 minuted behind Sainz, but continues to gain on 4th place Joan Roma, closing in to 21 minutes behind the sole remaining Mitsubishi works driver, who has been given the simple task of finishing  by his team bosses, anxious to avoid a PR nightmare. Gordon's team mate Eric Vigouroux also finished in the top 10 for the stage and moved into the top 20 overall at 17th after the stage.

Tomorrow's competitive stage has been cancelled due to the fact that the race crosses from Chile back to Argentina and the all important border crossing can only be made in daylight, which with fog forcast for the morning that would ground the crucial support helicopters, would be impossible.

Robby Gordon finished the 9th stage of the Dakar rally in 3rd place, 2m 16s behind the stage winner - multi-time World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz in a factory backed Volkswagen. Sitting in 5th overall with 6 stages to go Robby is a seemingly unassailable 1hr 34m behind Sainz who leads the car category overall.

However, the Dakar has shown this year (as much as any) that it is willing to ruin the hopes of winners in a blink. Sometime leader Nasser al Attiyah was thrown out of the rally late last week after missing two of the rally's waypoints. Past winners Luc Alphand and Stephane Peterhansel - both in works Mitsubishi's - were forced to withdraw, Alphand after a health scare with his co-driver and Peterhansel after a cataloge of mechanical problems including a fire.

But Robby is not purely reliant on the misery of others, his pace today allowed him to make up 26 minutes on Joan Roma - the final surviving works Mitsubishi - in 4th place.

All of this puts into context what Robby is actually doing. The AP stories featured on the main FOXsports site can sum up numbers and placings it does no justice to what he is actually doing. Robby's Team Dakar USA - a part of the same Robby Gordon Motorsport team that runs the No.7 car - is his private team - just like his Sprint Cup operation. Him challenging the likes of the factory VWs and Mitsubishis for stage wins is like him chasing down the NASCAR Hendricks, Roushs and Gibbs for wins, week in week out.

Add to to the fact that he is, for most conditions on the rally, in an inferior car. The VWs that are so far dominating the contest have the same formidable diesel power that has worked so well for the Audi R10 sports car, and 4 wheel drive. This gives them an enormous advantage over the petrol powered (incredibly) two-wheel drive Hummer when it comes to climbing the dunes and hills on the rally's path.

RGM is also running a second Hummer H3 car for Frenchman Eric Vigouroux, who currently sits 23rd overall, making up positions as other faulter. RGM has high hopes that both it's cars will be in the top 20 of the car categroy by the time the race ends in Beunos Aires on Sunday.

All of this means I am slowly warming to Robby Gordon. I may not have been too kind to him in the past, but along with him coming over to the Camry side of life for next year, his performances his Dakar performances are boosting him in my estimation no end

Those of you with good memories, or access to the FOXblog achives, will remember I blogged off about the cancellation fo the 2008 Paris-Dakar rally 12 months ago due to security risks in several of the North African countries on the route. 12 months on and the 2009 edition of the annual motorsport curtain raiser is underway, only in the South American states of Argentina and Chile.

However, and perhaps sadly, the new setting has brought the same news to the race.

The format remains the same, with the race starting late last week and continuing until it finishes in the Argentine capital Beunos Aires on Sunday 18th January. Each day contains a gruelling stage, especially compared to those raced on by the WRC - for comparison's sake the stage for today comprises of 506 competitive kilometres, with an additional 257 km of road travel, or 'liason', simply to get to the start of the race stage, and to the overnight camp. However, at least on analysis of the 4 stages already completed the race's trademark sand dunes are left off the new rally course.

However, while the torturous dunes may be gone, the danger remains, and may even have increased. The second stage saw French motorcyclist Pascal Terry fail to arrive in the first overnight stop and a crash that hospitalised the British pairing of Paul Green and Matthew Harrison, competing in the car class.

The attrition rate remains high with over 50 of the bike competitors, out of approximately 250 who started, having withdrawn after only 4 stages over. And it's not just the small privateers calling it a day. NASCAR driver Robby Gordon (who has made a habit of competiting the Dakar) currently sits inside the top-10 in the car class in his Hummer, but has been reported as having rolled the car twice yesterday, although TV pictures showed no noticeable damage to the car. Uber-experience Ice Racer and reigning World Toruing Car Champion Yvan Muller has been forced to pull out after his Car-class buggy crashed with a Truck competitor setting both vehichles ablaze, thankfully without casualty.

However, not every case is like this with search parties having found Pascal Terry, dead, three days after he disappeared. While official reports tell of how he was in an isolated area several miles away from his abandoned bike, questions have to be asked about the proficiency of the search, which no doubt involved several of the race's helicopters, if it took them three days to find him. Argentine police are investigating the cause of death, presumably answering the question of whether finding the rider sooner could have saved his life.

If the time it took for his location to be found is cited as a factor in his death, could it also signal the end for the Dakar, or at least as a comptitive race?  

UPDATE: The Dakar's European broadcasters, Eurosport, have come to pretty much the same conclusion as me. However, they also have additional information. Each competitor is given an emergency location beacon, so they can be found if they abandon out on the course. Terry's beacon was activated and was found with him. However, the beacon signal goes not to the race organisers on the course but to their French HQ, and it took a full day for the news of the beacon's location to reach Argentina.

Furthermore Eurosport (who are based in the rally's travelling camp) report that there was news that Terry had been seen in camp two days after his disappearence, which led to the initial search being called off.

Pascal Terry 1959-2009

Could the Nationwide Series be looking at the perfect storm in relation to it's future position in NASCAR?

I predict that 2009 could well be a make or break year for the Series' long term future, with the Cup series COT now undoubtedly the Cup car for the forseeable future, Nationwide's own COT "Pony" cars coming closer everyday, and the economic maelstrom.

All of this means either the second teir touring series could find a new lease of life, or could collapse under a lack of teams, talent and money.

Firstly the shiny, happy positive outlook. The Cup Series is haemoraging sponsors, at this time several teams are struggling to pick up deals for the 09 season. In recent years several teams, most natably Morgan-McClure have left the grid citing specifically sponsorship problems. But as these big name sponsors abandon the Cup Series, could the Nationwide teams be the beneficiaries?

Well, the budgets for Nationwide sponsors are surely going to be smaller than the Cup, but the levels of exposure any potential sponsor gets in only marginally lower. The big headline Cup teams - Hendrick (although under the guise of JR Motorsport), Roush, Gibbs and Childress all have a strong presence, and all regularly welcome their Cup drivers to the Nationwide rides. Throw into the mix high profile and successful teams such as Braun and KHI and there are more than enough teams that offer a healthy return for investment.

Furthermore, as fans become more price conscious could any reduced rates for Nationwide tempt more fans away from the Cup tracks in favour of cut-price seats while watching the same big names

And with the new car coming through this could be the time when the Nationwide stops comes out of the NASCAR shadows, establishing it's own identity and stopping being the second teir touring series, and becoming the other touring series.

Now the gloomy, gloomy doom and destitution approach.

How many sponsors are going to leave the Nationwide series? If the big budget multi-national companies that find the Cup teams are having to tighten their belts what will the smaller firms who's logo's adorn Nationwide hoods be forced to do. Could teams be forced to cut back on programs partly, or altogether? Aside from sponsorship woes recent departures Ganassi and Yates show the way the series could be going. Even the successful DEI teams that brought through Truex and Menard have shut up shop in recent years.

Even without these departures the Nationwide fields aren't exactly overflowing with talent, especially when the Nationwide and Cup series wend their ways to different venues on the same weekend. Just look over a few of the results from the Nationwide races last year and note the number of teams and drivers who regularly make the race only to complete a handful of laps, or at best finish several laps behind. Which sponsors are going to want to support such a series? Which fans are going to be willing to shell out cold, hard cash to watch races that might threaten 2007 Memphis proportions of mockery?

The new Nationwide COT will only make the problem worse. AS the car changes all the old data becomes useless, and with the different cars the data a team or driver can glean from a Nationwide race becomes even more useless for the Cup race. This means that the established big teams from the Cup side might start looking longer and harder at their Nationwide programs. The new cars also mean teams can no longer rely on old rolling stock. They need to build brand new cars, at considerable expense, might the smaller teams also be forced to pull out due to lack of funds. All of which equals end of series.

So there are the two alternate realities facing the Nationwide Series. Could either of these actually happen? 

"Cost Cutting Measures". They're everywhere. They're going to save the world. They're going to keep racing as we know it going. And wait. It's going to be even better. The racing is going to be closer, there's going to be more teams with a realistic chance of winning. There's even going to be more teams in the first place. It's amazing!!!

I think not.

It doesn't take a great amount of logic, or more than a handful of brain cells, to see that this logic isn't entirely true. If at all.

Looking at one simple change across F1 and NASCAR, the differences in how they may effect the sport are enormous, mostly owing to the fact that the two series have very different bases.

In a familiar CCM F1 has banned testing, except for one race weekends. This is very similar to what NASCAR have done. Of course Cost Cutting Measures in F1 are like millions instead of billions, but it's the thought that counts.  However, this is one place where the poisoned dwarf known as Bernie Ecclestone has done good with his huge international Scalextric set. Here's why.

If you are an F1 team and you want to test something, but can't unleash your car on a track you visit your (every F1 team owns or has access to a wind tunnel) personal testing facility. If you are a NASCAR team and you want to test something and aren't allowed to test on a proper track, you simply hook it up to your state of the art shaker rig. Opps, you mean you don't all have one of those. Guess the teams with one are going to get a huge advantage then. Plus most of the teams with the shaker rigs are the ones with the huge advantage in the (relatively) new car already. At least the testing ban in F1 coincides with enormous rule changes that pretty much level the field - common rumours held that the previously rubbish Honda team had the best 2009 spec car in the works.

If lower costs were equal to more teams and sponsors then the Truck Series wouldn't have gone through a year of losing teams and sponsors. If cost cutting actually worked we wouldn't have at least a dozen teams struggling to put together cup packages. We'd have sponsors clambering over each other to get the same amount of exposure for a cut rate price. If cost cutting worked then we wouldn't have already lost one F1 team in Honda, and have seen more mergers between Cup teams than banks.

Are these cost cuts going to mean that it's more affordable to go to races. Nope. Because the big businesses and the teams get to cut costs. We don't.

So who actually benefits from cost cutting. The teams? Well, possibly. NASCAR's move looks to be benefitting the big teams, F1 stands more chance of creating a level playing field with the cuts, but given the enormous budgets that are still in place it's very doubtful. The Fans? Nope, nope a million times nope. The Frances and Ecclestones. Bingo. They get to keep the series that are lining their pockets going in the best health possible, and as mechanics and drivers are having to move away from their work. The Frances and Ecclestones get increased job security.

And aren't they the ones who thought it would be a good idea to cut costs in the first place?