Mitsubishi says they're good at Rally, they just weren't that good in making money

Here's another casualty of the automotive industry crisis, with Subaru's withdrawals from the WRC (Big impact), Honda's withdrawal from F1 (were they even there?) and Porsche and Audi's withdrawal from ALMS (Spell dead for ALMS), Mitsubishi had just confirmed their non-participation in Dakar Rally, Dakar Series and basically all cross country races. Citing reasons over the current dire economic situations.

The funny thing over their press release, is that Mitsubishi would like to remind everyone that its not because they can't win (Honda might be sneezing now), as in their previous 26 entires into the sport, they've won 12 times, including a 7 time consecutive win.

Unlike most other sport, where the hardwork in training and preparation could easily be paid off by huge money when you win (Boxing, Golf, Tennis etc), benefits from motor racing can somewhat be described as intangible, as we can see even thou Renault tries very hard to capitalize on their previous F1 victories, the sheer thought of a Renault would only recall cup holders, plenty of seatbelts, sunroofs and sliding seats that could fold like origamis.

This is a huge dilemma for manufacturers and people making a living from this industry. Yes, they might earn from advertisements, but the dilemma extends itself right from the video cams into satellites and into your living room, will you, sitting in your living room watching a rally car blasting thru the desert with a small dirty Red Bull sticker suddenly decides you might want to get a carton of RedBull? Even if you do, you might need to cross the streets later on and soon forgotton why you did that for the first place and get a Budweiser instead.