Image credit: Jessica Barton/Instagram

Last Wednesday, public enemy number one of the drag racing community — thieves — struck again, this time down in Waterford, Fla., when they swiped the heavily modified Toyota Supra of Jessica Barton, a car-loving swimsuit model who has done on-air work for Power Automedia in the past.

Barton, who certainly knows her way around a race car, had spent years and untold amounts of money overhauling the very well-known Supra that put down more than 1,100 horsepower and ran well into the eights, only to have it taken in the cloak of darkness sometime between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. On Wednesday night.

Whether the thieves were aware of what they had taken or not, Barton’s Supra was a highly visible and one-of-a-kind machine, with a snowball’s chance to being sold in one piece or even parted out without being detected. After the heist, Barton posted a $5,000 reward for information leading to the car, and a virtual manhunt ensued. Unfortunately, on Monday, the search came to a sad ending when the Supra was found sliced up and abandoned, reportedly minus the most valuable part — the drivetrain. According to internet message board reports, parts of the car were found on the ground and stashed in several dumpsters on the property where authorities located it.

The search is still on for the perps responsible for the theft, and as the entire drag racing community that’s grown tired of these actions can attest, we can only hope that they’re found and taken off the streets for a long time. Or, maybe they could just hand them over to the disgruntled drag racing crowd…