I'm working a strange shift, heading for work about 0230.

I go out this morning and notice the radar detector cord is hanging down. Detector is gone. At first, I thought it had fallen down.

Then I notice that 2 of my driving gear bags are gone. Damn ... the HANS, suit, helmet, gloves, nomex underwear, shoes ... everything.

That is all just stuff ... what is irreplaceable is the notebook inside the bag that had 3 years of track notes.

This new truck is cursed, I tell you ... I'll have to wait till daylight and the rain to stop to see if the truck itself was damaged.

I guess I'll have to change my habits ... I always have my gear in the truck. Never know when I'll wind up at the track and have an "oppurtunity".

But, depending on what insurance says, my season might have ended before it even began.

That blows, Mitch!

I hope the thieves are stupid enough to put it up on ebay and something has a distinguishing mark. Did you call the cops?

Yep ... cops were called and arrived within 10 minutes. It was raining so not much could be done. I do have a police report number, though.

I just threw together an inventory list. Holy crap! Over a period of years, a person can amass quite the stash of goodies. The 3 biggies are driving suit, helmet and HANS. That's almost $3K right there ....

Now, how can I NOT let my wife find out I spent that much?

Damn thieves!

Damn that sucks.

Sorry to hear that Mitch.

I thought it was a law in Texas that you don't mess with a man's truck. Guess these guys were never informed.

That stinks. Do you think your truck was a random selection or do you think they knew there was track gear in there?

Probably yankees from Ohio or something




You know, that's a good question.

It was raining last night so it leads me to believe the perps knew where to look. But, on the other hand, there was a 3rd bag in there that they left.


The really sad part is most, if not all, of that stuff will wind up in a dumpster somewhere.

That just Frickin SUCKS Mitch! I know your fellow CMC'er(and us) just might have enough extra stuff laying around to get you back on track!

It's legal to shoot people on your property in Texas right? Note to self... get a pager equiped car alarm so I can um... come out and talk to them next time

I'm really sorry to here about that Mitch. I really hate thieves.

I have a long bed truck and I put most of my racing stuff in a tool box that sits under my roll up tonneau cover, so the tool box can't be seen with the tonneau on. Someone could slash the cover and smash the box to get it open, but they don't know there is a box under the cover. I think if you keep stuff out of sight, it's not in a thieves mind and that is the best deterrent because anyone can get into anything if they want it bad enough.

I thought that until a friend was working on his car one day and tossed a spare set of wheels under his tonneau cover and closed the tailgate. The next morning, the cover was shredded and the wheels were gone. It's odd that his truck was parked at his place forever and the one night he left a set of wheels in there, it got "hit". People don't get that lucky....

Boy, I'd be fit to be tied (or perpetrate a felony) if that I happened to me. I am sorry this happened, Mitch.

Sorry to hear what happened Mitch, especailly having your book taken ~ they'll never understand what that means to a racer
........if it's any consolation, I strongly believe in karma ~ they'll get their's

Indeed, that truly sucks, folks who do this are truly belly crawlers.... and that might be insulting my friends the snakes! Sorry to hear. I had my '93 K2500 broken into a few years back, found the truck RUNNING out in a parking lot, I was away from home, doing trade show with my geckos. The only reason it was not gone is because they broke the steering by doing a sloppy hack job with the column. Made a mess out of the outside of the truck too. Fortunately I had nothing in the truck for them to steal.

I would check all the dumpsters around your truck there. Sigh!

I thought of that too. I checked dumpsters, convenience store trash cans and the all the ditches in a 6 block radius. No luck.

It's all just stuff and most everything can be replaced or information re-created to a degree. Can't undo what's been done.

Drew, I too believe that what goes around, comes around. and someday. it'll hit'em hard. But that also applies to me.
So I guess I need to publicly apologize to Sam for a few things I did.



Looks like home owner's insurance will cover everything ... time to get a shopping list together ...

I'm glad to hear it will be covered. I've recently upped my insurance coverage (which was already pretty good). It's cheap, uh, insurance.....

Did they damage the truck, or just glass?

No damage at all.

How'd they get in? (A PM is fine if you prefer).

Mitch....you need to setup a trap in your yard for the next thieve. I friggin' hate thieves.

It appears through the driver's door.

Now, the next logical question is, "Was it locked?"

I dunno ... every time I get out and close the door I push that little button on the key fob.
It's like muscle memory. But do I specifically recall locking it? ... Nope

James, while I too hate thieves, it's not worth losing sleep over.
It's just stuff ...

Indeed, just stuff, and Karma will take of the rest.

I'm glad it appears your stuff will be covered by insurance.

As soon as I read this I wondered if the thieves might have known you kept things in your truck. If they did, be careful of things like your enclosed trailer and what's inside it. It seems all too often I see posts where racers have their trailer stolen with their race car, tools, etc. inside it.

After some long thought, I am becoming more convinced of just that.

I was going through my console and saw the card that has the pass code for the keypad door locks on it.
A few days ago, I sent my truck, with all the gear in the back, through a car wash.

I think it's worth mentioning to Deputy Luckie, one of Hood County's finest.

Keep in mind also folks, that I live in a rather rural, established area that has virtually NO crime.
The deputy said mine was the firs case he's worked in this area in the 8 years he's been on the force and he rarely sees reports about crime in this area.
That's no excuse for being rather non-challant about the security of my stuff. But I am falling back on complacency.

Maybe that's why I'm not real upset about the whole situation. I know there were/are steps I could have taken to prevent it from happening.
But we are describing a vehicle that someone opened and took stuff out of the vehicle and stuff didn't belong to them.

I know the feeling. It should be legal everywhere like it is in Texas to shoot someone breaking into your vehicle.

Last summer I bought my son a car to take to college. Insurance was expensive as hell for a 21 year old, so I cut it back to minimum. Last moday he called up and said he went to get in the car to go to class, and it was gone! He filled a police report, and they found it on Wednesday parked in downtown Pheonix. Still had the lock-picking kit and some tools they used to remove the door panels and stereo. Someone had tried to steal the stereo a couple months ago, but couldn't get it out so they just took the head unit. This time the crooks finished the job, but left it sitting in the back seat. Now he can't run the windows down, because the window switches went with the door pannels.

I might look silly, but when I'm at a track for a weekend, I carry my "gear" bag (HANS, Driver Suit, etc.) into the hotel with me every night....too easy for someone to get in an f-body the way the front window has no sill or into my truck in the hotel parking lot.

At the track, I always hope that someone is more into stealing a BMW, Porsche, or Vette over well prepared F-body!

Wonder what you can find out about the recent car wash.

I'd go look in their dumpster.

That sucks Mitch. I have a size 60 or 62 driving suit you can use if needed. Losing that notebook is horrible.

Cal, it is only legal to use lethal force to defend property in Texas between dusk and dawn. It is the night-time mischief law. I wouldn't consider it over the green car, but the red one.... Not sure....

List complied, police report finalized and insurance claim sent. Now it's a waiting game ...

I had no idea of the replacement costs of all that stuff. I've been blessed and gotten a lot of it on the cheap or even free. Replacing it is expensive.

Anecdote:
While picking up the police report, the lady at records asked me what nomex DIVING gloves were.
I explained that it was DRIVING gloves, not DIVING gloves.
She retorted Oh ... I was curiuos why you needed fire-proof gloves under water.



30 minutes later I had a revised police report.