Racecar Stolen UPDATE 2 and Recovered: the #70 Star Nursery car normally driven by Greg Pursley in the Winston West series was stolen recently outside of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It’s a 2000 Chevy Monte Carlo owned by the father of the late Chris Trickle(Dick’s nephew – see my Tribute Page about Chris). See full story with ways to contact the team with info at the Racing West site(1-23-2001) UPDATE: Las Vegas Motor Speedway is offering a $15,000 reward(up from $5,000) for information leading to the conviction of whoever stole the #70 Star Nursery Southwest Series car(1-25-2001) UPDATE 2 – Racecar Recovered: An alert racing fan’s tip to police in Calgary two weeks ago has led to the recovery of a NASCAR race car that was stolen in Las Vegas earlier this year. “He’d been going through the Internet and saw that a race car in Vegas had been stolen back in January,” Staff Sgt. Ken Marchant of the Calgary Police Service said Monday. “When he was at the races the next time, he saw this particular race car. It was a new car on the circuit and he noticed similarities between this car and the one stolen out of Vegas, even though this one’s been repainted.” The Chevy Monte Carlo had been repainted blue and green and was numbered 24. It had been racing in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia for the last two months. The name of its driver, Darin, was emblazoned above each door. The car, owned by Craig Keough of Keough Motor Sports in Las Vegas, had been on display for a weekend racing seminar in the Nevada city last January. The car and its trailer disappeared from a shop adjacent to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the middle of the night. Keough had posted a $15,000 US reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for stealing his stock car. “This unit here didn’t have an engine in it and subsequently the engine in it is stolen, and we’ve recovered some other stolen race car engines as a result of the search warrant,” said Marchant. The car and engines were among a total of $400,000 in stolen goods recovered during a raid last week near Chestermere Lake, just east of Calgary. Darin Bruce James, 28, of Calgary is charged with five counts of possession of stolen property. Police said further charges will be forthcoming at a court appearance Tuesday.(Canadian Press/Calgary Plus)(8-14-2001)
