Motorsports isn’t just a great place for people to get together and compete in the fastest cars and bikes on the planet. It’s also a good way to waste/launder the questionably rich’s ill-gotten gains.
There are many motorsports programs funded by convicted crooks, cheats, and financial skeezeballs to choose from. My favorite was Moneytron, which was a stock market scheme in the ‘80s that got its crazy founder hundreds of millions of dollars. That was enough to fund a Formula One team, thus giving birth to Moneytron-Onyx. They placed as high as third at the 1989 Portuguese Grand Prix.
Eccentric criminal millionaires can be a fickle bunch, however, and the man behind Moneytron pulled out from the team in its second season.
What was your favorite sketchy financial backing of a motorsports program?
Photo Credit: Getty Images (JJ Lehto at the ‘89 Portuguese GP pictured)
Contact the author at raphael@jalopnik.com.