Dakar Rally 2016 News: First Stage Cancelled Following Heavy Rain

Dakar Rally 2016's first stage has been, unfortunately, cancelled due to bad weather. The famous off-road car racing rally was withdrawn because of heavy rains that flooded parts of Rosario to Villa Carlos Paz.

Event organizers were actually expecting the bad weather on Sunday, but they didn't anticipate that it would be so hard. In fact, according to Autosport, the stage start has been postponed a number of times, as they are still waiting for the weather to get better.

It was even declared that participants would drive to Villa Carlos Paz in spite of the 'link section conditions', which set the stage as an untimed road area. In fact, after waiting for about two hours, Etienne Lavigne, the race director, finally announced the cancellation.

"It's no longer raining in the area of the special, but the weather is not good enough. The helicopters needed to guarantee the safety of the participants during the race are unable to fly due to poor weather conditions on the course of the special and at the end of the stage," a statement from the organizers said.

"The rain has turned parts of the special into torrents of water. The entire field will reach Villa Carlos Paz under link section conditions. Motorcycles and quads will travel in a convoy, cars on their own and trucks on the course reserved for assistance vehicles," it continued.

Furthermore, the Dakar Rally 2016 will now start on the second stage on Monday. Contributors will just follow the convoy that will start their 5,000-mile race on the highway of Villa Carlos Paz to Argentina and Bolivia, and back to Rosario to be finished, as reported by The Guardian.

Helicopters that flew over the top of quad bikes, cars, motorcycles and trucks to help the racers safety evidently had a hard time assisting them because of the bad weather. In fact, the cancellation just followed a mishap on Saturday, when Guo Meiling lost control of her mini cooper and went straight off of the road and directly towards the viewers.

The car crash resulted in wounding 10 people, which included five young kids and a pregnant woman. Unfortunately, a 34-year-old man and his 10-year-old son were badly hurt and rushed to the hospital because of their head and chest injuries, Lavigne said.

Watch the 2015 Dakar Rally of Robby Gordon Team by PlanetRobbyDotCom.