Thieves Hit Race Team
Million Dollar Heist
Pricey bikes stolen

Authorities are investigating a million dollar heist in the metro. Thieves targeted a racing team that stopped here for some much-needed sleep and woke up to the bad news.

Motorcycle drag racer Chip Ellis says a racing fan spotted the semi on the exit ramp of Interstate 680 at Highway 75, 27-miles from the Sarpy County hotel where it was parked Wednesday morning.

document.write(''); Ellis says, "Our team is pretty well known in the drag racing industry. He called our shop and said, 'I'd seen your truck on the side of the road.'"

Ellis says a window was broken, the dashboard was ripped out and the truck had been hot-wired. It was still running when Ellis found it.

The Douglas County crime lab team searched the trailer for evidence, looking for fingerprints and other identifiers of the thieves.

What Chip Ellis didn't see is what bothered him the most. Two drag racing motorcycles are gone along with four other bikes and three specialty engines.

Ellis says, "All the things we need for racing was stolen."

He puts the value of the loss at close to $1 million and says, "It's a real shame. We're in contention for the world championships here. Now we're basically done."

A drag racing motorcycle isn't something one can throw together, even for the Georgia team of G-Squared Motorsports. It's a quarter-mile test of acceleration: 0-190 miles-per-hour in seven seconds.

Ellis is now trying to salvage the last four races of the season.

The truck was parked at Sapp Brothers Wednesday morning when the thieves struck. The team was headed from California to a race in Minnesota.

Ellis says there was already a Sarpy County Sheriff's Deputy there investigating the case of another stolen semi when he noticed his semi was gone.

The racing team is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the motorcycles.