As president of The Ad Ranch, Chris Greta heard a lot of bold startup ideas from high-tech companies. But even he was surprised and intrigued by the plan that Angela Harkness and Gary D. Jones pitched to him in June 2002. “They said Angela had been a bikini model at some races, and they wanted to get into NASCAR,” said Greta, who was hired to create their promotional material. Harkness, a former stripper who said she had taught kindergarten, and Jones, a bank vice president, both from Austin, had no experience in racing, where running a team on the second-tier Busch Series circuit can cost $6 million a year. But five months later, after little background checking by NASCAR and the Ford Motor Co. and other suppliers, they had put together a dream team for the 2003 racing season. They hired a veteran driver [Mike McLaughlin], they bought cars, and they outfitted a garage in the heart of NASCAR country. As a woman and an African-American man, they were bright new faces who brought diversity to NASCAR, a sport rapidly growing beyond its Southern good ol’ boy roots. Doors swung open. Jones and Harkness walked through. Others followed. Then, just days before the 2003 season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway, the team’s checks, some for thousands of dollars, began bouncing. “It went up in smoke in just a few days,” Jay Robinson, another racing team owner, said shortly after the demise of Angela’s Motorsports. Now, a year later, Jones is in federal custody in Waco, set to stand trial May 17 on charges that he embezzled almost $1 million while working at a Wells Fargo branch in Austin and funneled money to his failed racing team. Harkness has pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit bank fraud and embezzlement and had agreed to testify against Jones. She was set to be sentenced May 21, but prosecutors think she recently left the country and have issued a warrant for her. If convicted, Jones faces up to 30 years in prison. Harkness agreed to plead guilty to one conspiracy count and seemed to be in line for a light sentence in exchange for her information about Jones, but that deal likely changed when she disappeared this month. She failed to report to authorities April 6, and one of her sisters later told a court officer that Harkness left the country in March, according to a court order seeking her return.(this is a HUGE column, see it at the Austin American-Statesman, but you need to register to view it all)(5-4-2004)
