Event Coverage Thieves target the Power Tour

I know it seems kind of extreme but what about at night removing the wheels and placing them in the room with the car on stands? Use a low profile jack to leave the car as low as possible.

 

also Utah non-resident permit. With my home state CCW, and the FL and UT, good for 33 States total.

 

Lojack makes a theft recovery tracking system. I think it costs about $700. I can't see me putting one each on my cars.

https://www.lojack.com/products/stolen-vehicle-recovery-classics/

 

With the internet being what it is, it would be nice if pictures of the stolen vehicles were immediately posted to any internet site that allows pictures. It would only take one "good guy" seeing any one of these vehicles to get some active result. The magazines out to post them on their internet sites too.

 

This is one of the reasons I don't go on long road trips in my Vette anymore. I spend all night looking out the window of the motel room.

 

Watched a guy “move” a locked motorcycle once by himself using a skateboard

 

Another thread here on the same subject has a link to photos of the four cars stolen. Why these cars were stolen I have no clue. I suggest looking in the parking lots of all the food stores in the area. Talk about "off topic" cars.

 

I was at an out of state stock car race years ago, I was probably just married 6 months. I was up, wife in the motel shower. I'm getting clothes together and hear the door knob jiggle... and it opens! There is a hand reaching in to undo the chain. I ran to the door and slam it on the guy's wrist with all of my 220 pounds at the time, and hear it break. After a lot of yelling (not by me) my wife comes out of the shower and I tell her to dial 911 before I let the guy go. The cops show up in minutes, the guy is still around... turns out he WORKS there and said it was time to check out, which was BS. It was around 8:30 and check out was 11. The cops sided with me, the guy was flaky as hell anyway. So away we went. From that day on, I carried a simple rubber wedge door stop when I travel. It works on carpet, wood and laminate floors. The more you push against it, the harder it digs in.

 

They have to be slicker than snot to spirit cars away like that. Not that long ago, a local guy with an old Camaro walks into a burger joint, the car locked up in the lot. In the time it took him to get his order and walk out, his car was GONE. Witnesses said it looked like a car repo. Flatbed, 2 guys and not much else.

 

Florida non-resident has a 37-state reciprocality. Or however it is spelled. You can have a concealed permit and the gun in 3 days, but they do check you out. I belong to a gun range outside of Hallenbeck. Just do not get busted with it in the 13 states than are not covered, go to jail, go directly to jail....

 

If one's good, two would be better ....

 

I think it would be a lot of fun to set up an ambush at a hotel during one of these shows. Get about 6 gorillas and hide out and wait for the dirtbags to show up. Escort them to a waiting car and take them for a little ride. Maybe strip them naked and leave them 20 miles from nowhere. The possibilities are endless.

 

My Daughter and husband went to vegas for a friends wedding. They left their pickup, aluminum trailer with a 4 place razor on the trailer in the motel parking lot for a bit. Last night thieves took the whole rig. Gone. $10,000 reward out. Lippy

 

1) never trust security, usually they are in on it.
2) no one cares about our rides more than we do. personally, if I can not see my ride or put it in a trailer backed against a wall, I wont go to the show.
3) always have insurance
4) kill switches help quite a bit, or battery cut off's.

 

Predictably, the suggestion of carrying a firearm gets brought up in a legitimate thread like this. Don't forget, depending on what jurisdiction you're in, if you use, of even threaten, deadly force in the protection of only property, you'll be reading the HAMB from the prison library. Deadly force is virtually never legally justifiable in solely the protection of property, and even if the State you're in chooses to not criminally prosecute, the civil suit you'd be a party to for shooting someone will make you sorry you did anything and didn't just hand the thieves the keys yourself. Not trying to get political on here at all, nor am I opining on whether this is right or wrong, etc. Simply stating the reality of the situation as I see it.

On a personal level, I don't think even if I could carry a weapon, that I could use it to protect only an inanimate object. If that thief also threatened my life or that of my family, totally different story. But for only a car or other inanimate object? Nah. I don't want that moral weight to carry around. Maybe it's because now I'm a father myself, and even though that thief might be a personal piece of shit for wanting/trying to steal my stuff, that piece of shit is someone else's son, brother, father, husband, etc., and their life still has value. I think maybe somehow along the way we've lost sight of that as a society. Maybe I'm just getting soft.

As for the original topic, the risk of theft is just a risk we take when we drive our cars. Kill switches, boots, etc., might dissuade a crime of opportunity, but if a seasoned thief wants a car, they're going to take it no matter what. Unfortunately this is the price we pay for having nice things, people who can't achieve it on their own legitimately want to rip it off of you. Insure it and have a solid agreed value, and whatever will be will be.

 

This is why my 55 wears its road rash proudly, I enjoy driving the hell out of it and its rarely the nicest car in the lot. It's also properly insured.

 

Most cell phones can be tracked Get the app and hide your phone in the car at night..

 

Sure "it sounds like fun" in one's imagination. The possibilities of that going very wrong are also "endless". Grandma always said "a ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

 

While I completely agree with your cautions about the legal consequences of the "use of deadly force",
and think those legal consequences should be kept foremost in mind unless the criteria have been met. Nothing else I say below changes the reality of that.

However, I do have a personal philosophy a bit different than yours. My view is that protecting property is not the whole point of "protecting property". What I see as the real issue is "protecting our way of life" which is the fabric of our society. Private property rights are well up in the top two or three tenets of a worthwhile society. It isn't the TV, cell phone or car that is the sole concern. The POS who has no regard for values of the society that serves us so well when respected, is the enemy. The more we tolerate, the more we are pushed to tolerate. When is enough enough?

 

The problem is always weighted the same way, we always have more to lose with lowlives inside or outside the system. I have been in situations where I had to ask myself, is it better to lose my career and get even, or do I have to let it go. Logic always made me choose the latter course.
Bob

 

***************************************************************************************

BINGO!!!

 

There's always a way around paper work , especially at the govt level , there's not enough watchers for all the dodgers. I know a guy who can transfer bank info , messing with dmv would be child's play to him !! This new internet world is frightening .!

 

there are consumer grade GPS trackers intended for your kids or pets. they cost about $100 plus subscription of a few bucks a month. sometimes a little laggy or other bugs, but they work pretty good for the price and let you track your car in real time with no limit to how much you monitor it. they are very small and can be easily concealed.

 

A repo man with a rig is an employed car thief.
I wonder what they do when business is slow?
I wonder if some moonlight?

I don't think this was the 'usual suspects?

 

Where do you think the shipping container is bound...
Japan
Germany
China
Middle East

 

Same bad news....happens all the time.....just be prepared......

 

My daughter's kids have cell phones part of getting the phone is to have a tracking app on them she can tell where they are any time. Hide your phone in your car and you can track it.

 

I suspect most of the car thefts at shows fall under the professionals, the guys with the rollbacks and the wheel lift trucks. They are cruising the lots in car, looking for the easy scores then coming back to get them.
They are probably looking for the rides by themselves, the power parkers that need that openness to show off their rides. Grab and go.
They are looking for the car neatly backed into the parking space perfectly centered, easy to grab and go. They probably come by earlier to pop the shifter into neutral. They really like the guys that drive straight into the parking space, lift the rear and go.

A little prevention, When you drive into that space to park between a couple cars, turn your wheels as far as they will turn, to the right or left. Odds are they will pass on your car because they can't grab and go, pulling it out of the space will put your car against the car next to you and they sure won't want that much noise. Even if you are parked by yourself, cranking the wheels all the way in one direction means it will be harder to load on the rollback, or it will go down the road sideways on a lift truck.
Anyway you can mount a motion sensor on your car tied to the lights & horn will improve your chances, though it won't take long for the pro to cut a battery cable and kill the noise makers.

For these guys to be effective, they need to be quick and quite. A lift truck can back up to your ride, drop the lift, back under, and close the lift, and lift the rear end off the ground, and be pulling you ride away in about 20 seconds, or less. If the truck is quite, and the driver is good, with no markings on the truck, it will be in what ever location it will be stored in before anyone even knows its gone. The odds are there is already a list of wanted car, if you happen to have a car on that list, there are pretty good odds your car will be taken, if they get 1/2 a chance.
Buy enough insurance to replace your ride at the current market values, not what you built if for 20 years ago. Gene

 

I was in the towing business for a while, just driving the trucks. People see the tow driver as a means to get what they want, legal or otherwise. I've had guys ask me to steal jilted girlfriend's cars. I've been offered an in to a car theft ring, I've been invited to real-deal chop shops. One guy that was re-tagging local cars with ID plates and registrations from out of state junkyards. He's doing life for something far worse. So what do I do, go to the police? People were turning up dead for crossing some of these people. They'd be found in trunks of junk cars or run down by a truck crossing the street.

So is the trade spiked with nogoodnicks? You bet it is. Cash will always be king and is hard to trace once it changes hands. Have a local flatbed that goes home with an employee at night, a common practice especially if they are on the wreck roster. So a 15 minute side trip to make a quick $500 or whatever is tempting. The local cops may also look the other way for a cut.

Car shows are like the carnival that comes to town, they attract good and really bad people. At the end of the weekend, the car show guys go home, maybe with a trophy, maybe less their coveted car. They are not locals and are viewed like a fresh roadkill to a hungry hawk.

 

...another good reason to drive a beater, but even some of those can be desirable ...
...disabling the ignition won't stop most of these guys, a car alarm that makes noise mite be best, but they probly disable that before hand...having someone watch the car all nite mite be the best solution....unless the thieves spot you first and eliminate you.
...