Good news for Travis Kvapil! According to WXYZ, the Team Xtreme race car Kvapil was supposed to race at Atlanta Motor Speedway was found early today by the side of the road northwest of Atlanta in Gwinnett County, Georgia, twenty miles from where it was stolen.
Team owner John Cohen is a lot happier to find this than he looks in the picture.
Thieves, probably realizing that they stole something really obvious that everyone was looking for, ditched the car near Loganville, Georgia. Unfortunately, this discovery was still too late for the team to make the race tomorrow at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The team brought the car back to their shop in Atlanta to make sure everything is still in working order, but so far, they haven't found so much as a scratch on the recovered vehicle.
They also plan on taking the car with the hauler at all times from now on. A winter storm that was moving through Atlanta forced them to take the hauler ahead of the car, however, that didn't work out this time.
"I've been doing this since 1979," crew chief Peter Sospenzo told WXYZ. "I've probably been to 1,200 hotels and 1,200 race tracks. Never once has this happened. It's crazy. But there's a first for everything, I guess."
Unfortunately, the trailer itself and its contents have not been recovered. According to NBC Sports, the pickup truck the team was using to haul the trailer was the only other item that has been found. Local police are still looking for information on the whereabouts of the other items.
Team Xtreme is one of the smaller NASCAR teams with a tighter budget than many of the others, so losing the trailer was an especially hard blow.