Racing car worth £350k stolen from exhibition venue

A British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) team is offering a £25,000 reward after one of its racing cars was stolen from an exhibition centre.

Power Maxed Racing, based in Studley, Warwickshire, said its Dexter Patterson BTCC Audi, worth about £350,000, was taken from a compound at Excel London on Wednesday night.

It comes 15 months after the team had to rebuild from scratch following a fire that destroyed its vehicles and former headquarters in Bretforton, near Evesham.

The BBC has contacted Excel London for a statement. The Metropolitan Police said it did not comment on individual incidents of car crime.

"It does start to make you wonder why you do certain things," team principal Adam Weaver told BBC Hereford and Worcester.

"You get people asking if the universe is trying to tell us something. I mean, what is the universe trying to tell me?

"We lost all of our cars in the fire, and then we had the resolve to knuckle down, build new cars and come back fighting strong, showing that we never give up."

Weaver said the team took the car to the London venue for some filming and promotional work.

It was put into a trailer, which was locked in the Excel's secure car park overnight, but Weaver said he was told three people managed to gain access to the site.

They then broke the gate locks from the inside, brought in a vehicle and towed away the trailer, with the car still inside, Weaver added.

He said it was probably worth about £350,000 but, as it was a bespoke BTCC racing car, it would likely not be of any value to the thieves.

"All of the parts on it are very bespoke to the championship and you won't be able to use them in other championships," he added.

"Most of the cost of building the car is time, so it's almost worthless to anybody else because they won't be able to use it, race it or even sell it off. But it's very valuable to us as a team."

Weaver said they were insured but he would rather get the car back as it took about 600 hours to build.

"We don't really want to be spending another 600 hours building another one if we can help it," he added.

He said he was told the Excel was holding a "crisis meeting" and that police said to him they would send officers to inspect the site.

He said the team attended the event free of charge to support people who were trying to promote motorsport.

"It was something we were doing in kindness," Weaver added. "We've gone to do that and we've lost something very significant."

The £25,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the safe recovery of the car, and people can privately message the team via its Facebook page.

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