DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The race trucks cost more than a $1 million each, their lightweight, off-road bodies fashioned completely out of carbon fiber and Kevlar. They had been packed and shipped to Lisbon, Portugal, where 40 members of Robby Gordon Motorsports were waiting for them. They had paid $360,000 in entry fees, bought thousands of dollars more worth of spare parts, and were ready to beat the desert. They were in line for technical inspection on the day before the start of the Dakar Rally when they learned the entire 5,760-mile endurance event had been cancelled because of terrorism concerns.

So instead of racing across the Sahara Desert, Gordon found himself at Daytona International Speedway on Monday for the opening session of Preseason Thunder. And still stunned at the cancellation of an event he had spent roughly $4.5 million to compete in.

"They didn't have a backup. They didn't have a plan. And they didn't give anybody even the opportunity to discuss a plan," Gordon said Monday morning. "They said, 'Race is cancelled, this is it.' At the point they cancelled the race, I had 40 people sitting in Lisbon, Portugal, and 28 of them were going on the rally. We didn't have flights for them, we didn't have hotel rooms. We were checking out the next morning. They just completely put a lot of people in awkward, awkward situations."

The race, organized by the Paris-based Amaury Sports Organization (ASO), had been scheduled to start in Lisbon on Jan. 5 and end in Dakar, Senegal, on Jan. 20. Gordon, a champion off-road racer, was the only NASCAR driver scheduled to compete in the event. Organizers cancelled the entire race after a group linked to Al-Qaeda killed a family of French tourists in Mauritania, one of the African nations the rally was scheduled to pass through. There were also threats launched directly against the race, according to the ASO.

Gordon said the competitors were summoned to a tent, where the announcement canceling the race was made in French. Competitors who spoke other languages listened to translations on headphones. Afterward, some of the racers applauded the decision. Gordon had a very different reaction.

"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, as many years as they've been doing this rally, not to have a backup plan, a B plan, a C plan, a D plan, what if this is going to happen ... Why didn't we run 10 days in Portugal, on the same course? Something," said Gordon, scheduled to field a two-truck team for Hummer. (Continued)