Racing is not just about being on track. An instructor at the University Of Northwestern Ohio in the high-performance motorsports program once said, Racing is about the small things and who can do them the best. I don’t think he implied dealing with unexpected circumstances such as having your truck, trailer, and race car stolen out of a hotel parking lot. Unfortunately for Gradient Racing they faced that challenge on Tuesday, October 1st as they came out of the hotel in Indianapolis, Indiana to discover that their truck, trailer, and Mustang Dark Horse R had all vanished into thin air. 

At around 1 in the morning thieves stole the 2005 Ford F350 dually and 34-foot goose neck trailer with Stephen Vajda’s white number 10 Mustang Dark Horse R, Mustang Challenge race car inside. That was parked outside of a hotel in Indianapolis, Indiana as the team prepared for the Mustang Challenge race this weekend at the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 

With a desperate plea for help on Facebook it would only be hours before the race car was located, still intact in an apartment complex on the south side of Indianapolis – without any major damage at least from the pictures posted online. No further details are currently available if anything else was missing. But with the final round of the Mustang Challenge season on Friday, October 4th at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the story for Gradient Racing, Stephen Vajda, and the number 10 Mustang Dark Horse R isn’t over yet!