Race-Car Retrofitter Cleaned Out

Rafael Fuentes showed up at his popular Fair Haven garage Monday to find his baby pit bull locked in the bathroom — and $70,000 of wheels, radiators, turbo chargers, and computers missing.

Trash covered the floor, the barrels emptied by burglars who then spent hours refilling them with the chrome and wiring that comprise Fuentes’ racing car retooling empire.

Worst of all, he has no insurance. He’d figured it was just $800 a month he couldn’t afford. And, after all, in seven years in business, no one had taken so much as a wrench.

Now everything’s gone.

The lifelong Fair Havener is asking neighbors who might have any information that could help figure out who cleaned him out.

“When I came in, my heart, it dropped,” he said Monday in between taking inventory and talking with the cops and with an employee of the alarm company. (The alarm never went off.) ​“They did a number on me. You couldn’t even think how people did this.”

Coco the baby pit bull was barking when Fuentes arrived at work 7 a.m. Monday at his Auto Authority shop at Grand and Poplar. ​“I don’t raise my dogs to be mean. But he barks,” Fuentes said. (Click on the play arrow at the top of the story to hear a sample of Coco’s barking as Fuentes offers a tour of the theft scene.)

After years as a mechanic in his neighborhood, Fuentes, a race-car driver himself, opened up the shop in 2004. He specialized in rebuilding classic Toyotas and Hondas as souped-up race cars, but with their original outer shells ​“street appearing” to qualify for races like those conducted by the National Hot Rod Association. He became a voice for legitimate racing, as opposed to illicit late-night street drag contests. And he knew the people in his neighborhood well enough that he didn’t worry about theft. He also installs alarms and remote starters.

“I’ve left tools on the sidewalk,” he said. ​“They never took my stuff.”

He sensed something had changed when he discovered that Coco’s barking came from the locked bathroom. He looked around the garage: his Toyota, a customer’s Toyota, his apprentice Keyvin Rodriguez’s red Honda — all empty husks. No wheels. No tires. Radiators gone. Regulators. Motor mounts.

In his office he surveyed his rows of car alarms and remote starters ready for sales. Vanished.

Three new nearby transmissions, gone. Computers, car parts, cleaned out.

By midday, Fuentes tallied $70,000 in losses.

He noticed that trash on the garage floor. The barrels were gone. He figures that given the amount of material missing, it took a crew hours to fill up those barrels and cart it all away. And he figures the heist must have taken hours, not only because of the amount stolen, but because of the method of extraction. ​“They unscrewed every line” connecting parts to the interior of the cars, he observed. ​“They didn’t cut anything.”

A friend told Fuentes he’d passed by the shop around midnight. He hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

A neighbor reported having heard a commotion around 2 a.m. He saw a white van. He never called the cops, though.

Fuentes called the police. They dusted for fingerprints. The robbers left behind a rubber glove. Not a lot to go on, at least yet. Monday afternoon he awaited the arrival of a detective.

He’s asking neighbors for help: ​“If anybody has any information, call me” at 203 – 508-5318.

Meanwhile, Fuentes is weighing his next move. ​“You’re spending a lot of money just to survive in this business,” he said. He’s not sure he wants to stay in the business; the loss might be too great, the opportunities more promising elsewhere.

But in the meantime, a repairman had a new alarm system up and running by mid-Monday. In case a crew comes by again after hours.