Colorado lawmakers on Monday introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at cracking down on the scourge of vehicle theft in the state by decoupling the cost of a stolen car from the criminal penalty a thief faces and by increasing penalties for repeat auto theft offenders.
Senate Bill 97 would make stealing any vehicle a Class 5 felony, which is generally punishable by one to three years in prison or a fine between $1,000 to $100,000, or both.
Right now, the penalty level for an auto thief depends on the value of the vehicle they steal. The lowest level offense is a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 364 days in jail, for stealing a car worth up to $2,000 if it’s a first or second auto theft. The highest level offense is a Class 3 felony, punishable by up to 12 years in prison, for stealing a car valued at $100,000 or more.
Under the new measure, a person who steals a car could be charged with Class 4 felony based on aggravating circumstances, such as should a thief keep the vehicle for more than a day, use the vehicle during the commission of another crime or take steps to alter or disguise the vehicle. Class 4 felonies are punishable by up to six years in prison.
The legislation, brought at politicians face pressure to deal with an increasing number of car thefts across the state, would also make a third or subsequent auto theft conviction a Class 3 felony, which are generally punishable by four to 12 years in prison and fines of $3,000 to $750,000 or both.
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Tim Lane, with the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council, said the legislation creates a tiered auto theft penalty system that aims to send a message that no matter the value of a vehicle, stealing an automobile is a serious offense. Lane said the legislation likely wouldn’t change the maximum penalty for a juvenile auto thief.
“This is one thing to help with auto theft,” he said, “but it’s by no means the entire solution.”
Lane spoke at a news conference with Democratic and Republican state lawmakers. Also attending the event were Denver-area mayors and police chiefs, as well as local prosecutors and key members of Gov. Jared Polis’ administration.
“Imagine waking up one morning to find your only way of getting to work, of getting your kids to school or day care is gone,” said Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat and prime sponsor of the bill, at Monday’s news conference. “Picture heading to the parking lot after a long day of work to find your way home has been taken. Imagine the terror of being held up at gunpoint and forced to leave your vehicle in a carjacking. Too many of our neighbors don’t need to imagine what this feels like because they have lived it firsthand.”
The other lead sponsors of the bill are Republican Sen. Bob Gardner of Colorado Springs and Reps. Matt Soper, R-Delta, and Shannon Bird, D-Westminster.
Polis, in a written statement, endorsed the measure.
“To achieve our shared goal of making Colorado one of the top ten safest states in the next five years, it is critical we address rising auto theft crimes in our state,” he said. “Coloradans are counting on us. A vehicle’s monetary value does not represent the value to the owner and the impacts a stolen vehicle has on a person or family’s daily life. Criminals should be held accountable for the crimes they commit and charged in a consistent, just, and rational way.”
The new legislation also includes a “joy-ride” provision that would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to use a vehicle without the owner’s permission as long as the car is returned within 24 hours without damage and only minor traffic offenses were committed. A second and subsequent conviction for the joy-ride offense would be a Class 5 felony, however.
The bill hasn’t been scheduled yet for its first hearing.
SUPERIOR — Every once in a while you see things that cause you to shake your head in bewilderment, the type of things you can’t even make up, defying both logic and common sense and seem to happen in America more places than most.
Barry Sinex, one of the driving forces behind the NASCAR on Ice racing event Sunday, Feb. 5, on Superior’s Allouez Bay, was asked, “Who comes up with a hare-brained idea like this?”
“Well, I tend to come up with a lot of hare-brained ideas,” Sinex said, laughing.
Hare-brained? Yes. Fun? Absolutely.
For last year’s inaugural event, Sinex, through his connections as a sponsor, got a handful of NASCAR drivers to come up and do some ice racing, using cars that regularly race on the bay as part of the Lake Superior Ice Racing Association. The event was originally scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 21, but was postponed two weeks due to a lack of ice thickness.
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This year, Sinex has taken a giant leap forward by purchasing six retired NASCAR Cup Series cars for the event. He doesn’t plan to keep them all. He sold one of the cars to NASCAR Towing and leased another to Get Hooked Towing. Sinex said all the cars are available for purchase as long as the buyers have the intention of entering them into the NASCAR on Ice race each year (for more information, go to nascaronice.com or call Sinex at (218) 349-4424).
“This is something that has never been done before, so I can’t tell you every little detail about how everything is going to happen because nobody has ever put NASCAR Cup cars on ice before,” said Sinex, owner of Sinex Transport, a Superior-based owner-operator trucking company. “It’s a very big experiment. We know what the ice-racing cars do, but we don’t know what the NASCAR Cup cars are going to do.”
Sinex said current Cup cars cost between $450,000 to $500,000.
These cars, which Sinex said cost between $12,000 to $28,000 apiece, are from the late 1990s through 2014 and were all designed for racing at the highest levels of NASCAR. Every year there were tweaks to the design of the cars, so while they all look similar, they are not exactly the same.
Sinex identified one of the cars being the backup car for Rusty Wallace at St. Louis in 2006.
“All the cars were built by NASCAR race shops such as Chip Ganassi Racing and Rick Hendrick,” Sinex said. “They all have serial numbers that identify who built them. However, the history behind each one is difficult because many cars are made by each race shop and they may have been taken apart and built back up for another year.”
Four NASCAR retired Cup Series cars sit at rest on a race track built on property owned by Brandon and Dawn Olsen in Poplar as seen Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
To get them ice-racing ready, Sinex said his crew put different tires on them. They’re the same size of NASCAR tires but have treads on them. They also made minor modifications to the inside, to keep the windshields from fogging up, and they replaced the shocks because NASCAR shocks would have destroyed the cars. Allouez Bay in February is no Talladega.
“We have no expectations. We don’t know,” Sinex said a few weeks ago before a testing session. “We have an idea. They’ll go around. We already did that. They go around and they go around quite fast and they have a good grip on the snow and they handle the bumps really well. They’re awesome. But we don’t really know until we get all six of them out there, how they’re going to go and how the snow is going to hold up. There’s a lot of things we’re looking at, so it is a work in progress and next year we’ll have a lot more information.
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“It’s a ball. And the thing is … it doesn’t matter … we don’t have to have this perfected. It’s more fun not being perfected. Those guys had so much fun last year.”
Lake Superior Ice Racing Association will host its regular points racing on Saturday with the professional drivers racing in 'normal' cars before firing up the Cup cars on Sunday. Among the drivers with NASCAR ties expected to compete this year are David Starr, Josh Biliki, Josh Reaume and Jennifer Jo Cobb.
Starr took part in last year’s event and said it was an eye opener. The ice-racing regulars kind of mopped up on the pros. Starr said it reminded him of the grassroots level that forms racing’s roots.
A banner attached to two posts promoting NASCAR On Ice is displayed next to a race track built on property owned by Brandon and Dawn Olsen in Poplar as seen Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
“It was interesting,” Starr said of the experience. “A couple ice racers downplayed it, what they did, and I stopped them. I said, ‘Hey man, what you do, and how you all do it, is incredible. It reminds me of when I was racing on dirt tracks. Just because we’re NASCAR race car drivers, you don’t downplay any level or type of racing, because I started at the bottom and was blessed and fortunate that I made it to the top, but every aspect of racing, no matter if it was the very bottom, it was absolutely incredible and awesome and I loved every minute of it.”
This isn’t NASCAR legends Dick Trickle and Alan Kulwicki we’re talking about here, Wisconsin natives who presumably knew a thing or two about driving on ice. Most of the NASCAR on Ice drivers have hailed from warm climes.
Starr grew up in Houston and lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It was 57 degrees when he left Saturday, Jan. 28, to meet up with a sponsor in Kansas City. Perhaps that’ll serve as a nice warmup — or, make that, cool down — for what he’ll be experiencing this week. He is supposed to arrive in Minnesota this Friday when the high temperature forecast for Superior is expected to be negative 1. But hey, it’ll be sunny.
“That’s nuts, man,” Starr said. “I don’t think I could live in that but you’re used to what you’re used to, right?”
Sunday's predicted weather? Partly cloudy and a balmy 29 degrees. The NASCAR drivers got lucky last year, too. They were freezing but they didn't realize sunny skies and temps in the low 20s made that the Twin Ports’ best day of the week. It was the first time Starr had ever seen a frozen lake.
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A retired NASCAR Cup Series car sits at rest on a race track built on property in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
“I’ve never been that cold in my life. I don’t remember but the temperature was just cold,” Starr said, cracking a hearty Texas laugh.
Starr fondly recalled trying to pass a woman but couldn’t. She was hard as that Allouez ice. He looked in astonishment coming up on an old Dodge pickup truck, with a rear-mounted engine, as the left-front tire came three feet off the ice while the rest of the vehicle dug its way around the curves.
“I’m trying to pass but I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Starr recalled. “The men and women that race on the ice up your way, they’re very skillful and talented. There is a skill, there is a big skill to it, and trying to learn it last year for the first time, and trying to compete with those people was a big challenge — for all of us (he laughed again). It’ll be a challenge but it’ll be a fun challenge. Hopefully our race will be entertaining.”
If last year was any indication, it’ll be all of that and then some.
“It was amazing,” Starr said. “The best part was the people, the fans, the racers that race on that ice, the association that was part of it, the people were so passionate. It was cool to see a group of people who really love something and are so passionate about it. It was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.”
NASCAR ON ICE What: Second-annual event featuring NASCAR drivers, but this year, there will be retired NASCAR Cup Series cars as well When: Sunday, Feb. 5 Where: Allouez Bay (near 44th Ave. East in Superior) Schedule: the track opens at 10 a.m., with Stage 1 racing at noon, Stage 2 at 1 p.m., Stage 3 at 2 p.m. and a winner’s presentation at 3 p.m. Cost: $25 for spectators ($15 for children under 12) For more information: nascaronice.com
A retired NASCAR retired Cup Series car sits at rest on a race track built on a property in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A retired NASCAR Cup Series car sits at rest on a race track built on property in Poplar as seen Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
The view through the driver's window of a retired NASCAR Cup Series car as seen Saturday, Jan. 14 in Poplar.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
Darin Meierotto sits in a retired NASCAR Cup Series car ahead of driving it around a race track during test runs in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A 1957 Chevrolet car driven by Jeremy Lambert races toward a turn on track in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
Brandon Olsen, of Poplar, exits a retired NASCAR Cup Series car that he drove during test runs Saturday, Jan. 14 on track at property he and his wife Dawn Olsen own.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
Dawn Olsen, of Poplar, holds up a cell phone Saturday, Jan. 14 to capture visuals of the auto racing at property she and her husband Brandon Olsen own.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A retired NASCAR Cup Series car driven by Barry Sinex speeds around a turn on a track in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A retired NASCAR Cup Series car regains control while proceeding through a turn on a track at a property in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A banner featuring professional driver Jennifer Jo Cobb attached to two posts is displayed next to a race track built on property owned by Brandon and Dawn Olsen in Poplar as seen Saturday, Jan. 14. Cobb has been invited to race in the upcoming NASCAR On Ice event at Allouez Bay in Superior.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
Barry Sinex sits in the driver's seat of a retired NASCAR Cup Series car that he raced during test runs at a track on property in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A retired NASCAR Cup Series car races on a track at a property in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A red 1957 Chevrolet car that competes in Lake Superior Ice Racing Association races sits at rest on a race track built on property in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A green Chevrolet El Camino car that competes in Lake Superior Ice Racing Association races sits at rest on a track on property in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A red 1957 Chevrolet car that competes in Lake Superior Ice Racing Association races sits at rest on a race track built on property in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A retired NASCAR Cup Series car sits at rest among a group of cars on a race track on property in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
Four retired NASCAR Cup Series cars sit at rest on a race track groomed on property owned by Brandon and Dawn Olsen in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
Dawn Olsen, of Poplar, left, laughs while having a conversation with her father Barry Sinex, sitting in a retired NASCAR Cup Series car, after he drove it turning test runs on a track at Olsen's property Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
A retired NASCAR Cup Series car sits at rest on a race track built on property in Poplar as seen Saturday, Jan. 14.
Dan Williamson / Duluth News Tribune
Barry Sinex sits in the driver's seat of a retired NASCAR Cup Series car that he raced during test runs at a track on property in Poplar Saturday, Jan. 14.
