To the thief stealing gas caps during Corvettes at Carlisle- THIS MESSAGE IS FOR YOU!

[racelance]

Dear Thief-

First, I’d like to thank you for the sleepless night last evening. I could not sleep because I was furious after hearing that for a second year in a row you have stolen vintage Corvette gas caps from wonderful friends and supporters of Corvettes at Carlisle. Ironically enough my team and I should be glowing because we had record numbers throughout our weekend and the weather was downright incredible. However, my mind is in another direction and I’d like to share it with you and the Corvette community as a whole.

Many of you might know that when I have a vision or a dream I go after it. I give my all to succeed. My new mission is to have you caught and put behind bars. I intend to succeed at this too. I’m a firm believer that good things come to good people. And on the other hand - bad things come to bad people. You are a downright bad person. Things might seem wonderful for you now, especially after such a successful weekend of stealing other people’s hard earned property. I’m guessing you’ll most likely try to sell these gas caps – and you’ll probably get some money. What I just don’t understand, and will never understand, is how you can sleep at night knowing how many people you’ve upset this past weekend (9 gas caps were reported stolen this weekend).

To those of you that had your gas caps stolen, please accept my sincere apologies. Please note that in the special display areas such as the 50th Anniversary, we had a security guard on duty all through the evening. However a couple of the owners let me know they felt the thief took the gas caps in the morning, right under our noses. To say I’m upset about this is an understatement.

With all of this said…I’m asking for the entire Corvette community to come together. Let’s join forces and find the person or circle of people that are stealing innocent enthusiasts and businesses owner’s products. If you see somebody that’s taking off a gas cap question find a security guard and tell them. What I enjoy most about the Corvette hobby is the true camaraderie and passion behind it. Again, I’m asking the entire Corvette community to come together as a whole and let’s find the few bad seeds and weed them out. I give you my word I’ll do my best.

If you have any ideas of how we can catch this person, I urge you to email me: lancem@carlisleevents.com.

Thief – if you have a change of heart after reading this letter and you want to return the gas caps – you can ship all of them to me and I will make sure they get back to their rightful owners. You can send the caps to me at the following address: Carlisle Events (attention: Lance Miller), 1000 Bryn Mawr Road; Carlisle PA 17013.

Thank you for your time.

Very aggravated,

Lance Miller

PS Please cut & paste this message everywhere you feel would help spread the word - we need to come together on this one! I appreciate your help & plan on personally contacting editors at various automotive magazines to help me spread the word.

 

[Bobsvette]

That's rotten, it's a safe bet that it's an outsider not a vette owner. ;squint: could not make out this year, other than the caps sound's like a great weekend. Bob Y.

 

[Mike G]

Theft Among The Goodwill

Racelance -
I have a feeling you will win when the Vette community comes together on something like this. The key, I think, is for everyone to remain alert in a causal kind of way, a kind of consciousness that thieves won't expect.

All the best

 

[XLR8]

What a sorry and pathetic individual!

Just a suggestion, but I'd highly recommend to the entire Vette community, enthusiasts and attendees - take a careful look through ALL your Carlisle photos for anyone in the background in the proximity of gas tanks and gas caps. There must be a million photos from Carlisle and anyone may have inadvertantly caught the perp in one of them.

I wouldn't want the Karma building up for this lowlife.

Jane Ann

 

[67vet]

One of our Carolinas Chapter Solid Axle Corvette Club members had the gas cap stolen from his 1960 Corvette while under the tent this weekend. He had to purchase a repo cap so that they could drive in the parade.

From now on I will pull the cigarette lighter and gas cap when I show my cars. I show my cars so people can enjoy them, not to provide parts for low life theives.

Attached is a photo of a 1954 Corvette Bloomington Gold winner who had his "Eaton" gas cap stolen this weekend.

I hope everyone gets their caps returned to them and the thief arrested.

On a positive note: The show was awesome, I bought some needed parts, met a lot of old friends and enjoyed seeing car number 3.
I enjoyed meeting you, Lance, and hearing and meeting John Fitch.

 

[Tom Bryant]

I still don't understand why C1 gas caps have become worth more than their weight in gold but they have. I guess it's a good thing if you have one and bad since you can't take your car out anywhere without replacing it with a repro first. My opinion is to use a cap that functions properly but looks nothing like an original. Hopefully a thief would know enough to not take it.

Unfortunately I feel the thief probably is someone in the Corvette hobby since they know what an original looks like and what it is worth. Not too many outsiders would have a clue or care. We need to be watching all of the usual outlets for selling these types of items for new listings. Calls and questions would be appropriate also. Anyone with multiple caps for sale over the next year should be considered suspect even if they only advertise one at a time.

Tom

 

[catbert]

If the theft of these caps is a known issue, why take the chance of exposing them (unwatched) to crowds of people? It's a shame you can't trust everyone, but a crowd of many thousands has to include some thieving scum. A little common sense goes a long way. It's a sad situation nonetheless.