Historical Motorsports Stories writes:

"Angela's Motorsports: How a Stripper Conned NASCAR"

Posted by nascarman on June 14, 2019

Viewed 6047 times Tweet In October 2004, a group of US Marshal Service deputies waited in Round Rock, Texas for a garbage truck to come. They were hunting a criminal, an ex-stripper who'd bought a NASCAR team, paid for nothing, scammed the sport, and fled the country. The deputies sat in this residential neighborhood hoping to find out where exactly Angela Harkness was.



The garbage truck pulled up and the deputies stepped out of their cars. Flashing their badges, the Marshalls confiscated the bags of garbage and drove about 20 miles to the nearby city of Austin. Sitting in a parking garage across the street from a federal courthouse, the deputies got their answer at the bottom of a garbage bag.



Angela's Motorsports was formed in late 2002. They quickly hired Mike McLaughlin to race the entire 2003 Busch Series season, got engines from Robert Yates, and hired a tremendous crew.



But Angela's Motorsports was later revealed as one of the biggest scams NASCAR had ever seen. The team was funded entirely by fraudulent bank loans, and its namesake fled to the Middle East before she could be jailed.



The story of Angela's Motorsports is one of supreme deception.







Who Was Angela?



Angela Harkness was born Fatemeh Karimkhani in Iran in 1976. When she was three years old, the Karimkhanis fled Iran when the government was overthrown by extremists. According to the Angela's Motorsports press information, her father was a general in the army of the deposed government. The refugee family settled in Osnabruck, West Germany. Allegedly, she earned a degree in psychology and taught kindergarten in Germany all before moving to Austin, Texas at the age of 19.



When Fatemeh and four of her sisters moved to Texas in 1995, she quickly tried to earn her citizenship by marrying an American man named Rayford Tyler. The fast marriage ended almost immediately. Now calling herself Angela, she moved to California in 1998 and began working as a stripper at a San Fernando Valley club called the Candy Cat.



Working as a dancer there, she met 40 year-old Dion Harkness, a judge for the California State Compensation Board. While Harkness was viewed as a charismatic legal mind by his peers, Angela derailed his life.







"They were a bad combination," fellow lawyer Charles Bentley told Car and Driver in 2004. "Angela drank a lot of beer and was using coke. Dion hit the hard liquor. She had an emotional temperament and would yell and scream when she got tight and started to fight with Dion."



The couple married but had a violent relationship. Friends claimed she assaulted Dion regularly. When police were called to the Harkness home, Angela was found with bruises and Dion was arrested. His career as a judge was over.



Dion tried to move forward as an attorney but was again accused by Angela of domestic abuse. He was placed on three-year probation by the bar association. The birth of a daughter in November 2000 further strained the fragile relationship. On February 24, 2001, the couple fought again and Dion left. He drove to a Red Roof Inn in Thousand Palms, California and spent the next week there. Angela was apologetic, calling his office and promising remorse. Once again, he spoke to her, and apparently she visited his motel room.



Overcome with depression, Dion took a gun and killed himself on March 4th. In his suicide note, he swore he never hit Angela. With scratch marks on his face, Dion's co-workers believed she fought him again in the final moments of his life.



"I don't know for the life of me how she found out he was dead," fellow attorney Clifton Sheng told Car and Driver. "No one here ever told her, his parents never told her, the coroner's office, the police-no one in the loop ever talked to her. We all think she was there, in the room with him, when it happened. He probably did it in front of her."



In the months after Dion's death, Angela moved back to Texas. She worked at The Yellow Rose strip club in Austin and met her next partner there: Gary Jones. Jones was a married man in his 30s, a vice-president of a Wells Fargo bank in North Austin.



As with Dion, Angela was able to seduce Jones while destroying his life. After leaving his wife, he began to embezzle money from Wells Fargo to give to Angela. Using his position at the bank, Jones would take out fraudulent loans in the names of other people. FBI investigators later said he did this 12 times. His sisters got loans, Angela's mother got loans. But they were never told of the money and Angela got nice things: a Mercedes SLK230 in January, a nice house in April.



"In Angela, Gary probably met somebody he shouldn't have," Yellow Rose manager Tom West said. "The thought of swindling money probably never crossed his mind before he met her."







Entering NASCAR



In mid-2002, as NASCAR exploded in popularity, Harkness and Jones viewed it as a great way to make even more money. With a little investment, sponsors would bring millions of dollars and line the owners' pockets with cash. Jones took more fraudulent loans and they quickly created a team that would run in the Busch Series.



Angela's Motorsports was born.



On the outside, Angela's Motorsports was a modern team that earned great praise for the diversity it brought to NASCAR. Harkness was a 26 year-old Iranian woman. Jones was a 34 year-old African-American man. Everyone wanted them to succeed.



"Everybody in NASCAR came out of the woodwork to help Gary and Angela," the team's PR rep, Christine Mifsud, told Car and Driver. "So many people donated time, expertise, and effort."



Jones scavenged a sponsor from the bank too. One of his clients was Rick Barton, president of WiredFlyer.com, a travel agency website. Despite his small budget, Jones convinced Barton to make a creative deal. WiredFlyer would get their logo on the car in exchange for help with travel expenses and Jones would get shares in the company if it was sold. Barton was promised that another sponsor would be signed that would cover most of the expenses.



Initially, David Green was named as the driver for a part-time schedule at the end of 2002. The plans were disrupted when the team came together slower than the owners expected and Green was hired by Hendrick Motorsports.







Finding A Driver



Near the end of 2002, Joe Gibbs Racing announced that Mike McLaughlin would not return to the team in 2003. Despite McLaughlin running in the top-five in points, the team wanted Coy Gibbs to drive the car instead the following year. As it turned out, Gibbs finished in the top-10 only twice, and the season went so badly that he retired from driving at the end of 2003.



Regardless, McLaughlin was one of the top free-agents in the Busch Series. Angela's Motorsports first contacted him on Monday, October 21st. They pushed, they convinced, and they sold McLaughlin on the idea that the team was fully funded and would be strong in 2003. A mere five days later, the car was painted, it was brought to Atlanta Motor Speedway, and McLaughlin was introduced as the next driver for Angela's Motorsports.



"It all happened so fast, I couldn't believe it," McLaughlin said at the press conference. "Those people were bound and determined to make that announcement this weekend."



The team showed tremendous potential. After fielding a car in the Busch Series for Kasey Kahne in 2002, Robert Yates was leaving the series. An agreement was reached that Angela's Motorsports would buy equipment and Ford engines from Yates for roughly $900,000.



When the car was unveiled, it was covered in WiredFlyer decals to the surprise of the company. Once again, Jones promised Rick Barton this was only a placeholder until a larger sponsor could be signed. McLaughlin was told that WiredFlyer had signed a $5 million contract.







The team tested at Homestead and made their race debut at Phoenix in November. With Jay Sauter driving, they failed to qualify. The following week, they entered two cars at Homestead, one for Sauter and another for Kevin Lepage. Allegedly this was at the urging of WiredFlyer.



"Wiredflyer.com contacted us over the weekend and told us that they wanted to field two cars for the last race," Angela Harkness said in a press release. "Kevin has helped us tremendously with the formation of this team we wanted to give him a chance, as well as Jay. Our goal is to see both qualify for the event, and in turn give wiredflyer.com twice the exposure."







Both cars qualified for the race. Lepage fell out with brake issues after halfway and Sauter finished the race two laps down in 25th.



Entering the off-season, Harold Holly was hired to be McLaughlin's crew chief and Clyde McLeod would serve as team manager. As team president, Angela had a silent but ongoing presence.



"We'd heard about her temper, but she was always so quiet around us," Mifsud said. "We never knew if she was evil, or just stupid."



Four days after Homestead, Jones took out a loan for $250,000 in the name of Angela's mother. He then wired $150,000 to Robert Yates and $100,000 to Mike McLaughlin. They were the only ones getting paid that winter. Checks started bouncing while employees and suppliers weren't getting anything. One final $70,000 loan to the team was granted in December.



"Angela's Motorsports wasn't all that different from a lot of teams that start racing on spec," FBI agent Matt Gravelle told Car and Driver, "except that their seed money was stolen. They were hoping a windfall would come along-in the form of a major sponsor-to save them."







Falling Apart



Wells Fargo was beginning to notice all the loans Gary Jones was taking out. After an investigation, Jones was fired in January. Unfortunately, the fraudulent loans were the only souce of income for the team. They were never able to find a major corporation to sponsor them and bail out their debts. Seeing the team was a fraud, Robert Yates sent trucks over to the race shop and repossessed his tools and engines.



At the very last moment of the team's existence, they participated in January Testing at Daytona. Showing that it truly was a good group of racers, McLaughlin posted the 10th fastest speed in testing.







The team officially closed on January 28th. 17 employees were laid off and thousands of dollars were owed to dozens of people.



With less than three weeks left until the season-opening race at Daytona, McLaughlin tried to find a new team to drive for and help his deceived crew. McLaughlin sold equipment he owned, paid creditors, and gave each crew member two weeks pay.



"I was crushed for the guys who had lost their jobs," McLaughlin said. "It was the worst situation I've ever been involved with in my life."



Jay Robinson and Premium Motorsports bought the remaining assets to Angela's Motorsports. Robinson and McLaughlin agreed to race Daytona with the car he used in testing. Needing the money to race, McLaughlin appealed to fans for help. He went on Claire B. Lang's XM Radio show to explain what happened. The tale of this honest, popular driver in trouble spread like wildfire. Thousands of fans known as "XM Nation" donated money to McLaughlin by mailing it to his fan club or by sending it through Paypal. The crowd-sourcing was a tremendous success and over $80,000 was raised. 2002 Cup Championship winning crew-chief, Greg Zipadelli, wrote a $10,000 check. Todd Bodine bought tires for the car and volunteered his pit crew for Daytona. Darrell Waltrip sponsored the car with his DW Store website. Harold Holly worked for free. In the race, McLaughlin qualified fourth and was running 15th when he was involved in a crash with two laps to go.



Not knowing the truth, fans assumed WiredFlyer failed to deliver. The terrible publicity ruined this unwitting company. The company's president, Rick Barton, lost $80,000 stepping up and paying people who were owed money. Amid the stress, existing heart problems worsened and Barton died on July 30th at the age of 48. His widow blamed his death on the scam.



"I can't prove anything, but that whole thing destroyed him. It was just devastating," Barton's widow said. "It was the worst year of my life and his."



Following the collapse of Angela's Motorsports, the owners moved on to other things. Jones opened a sports bar in Temple, Texas. But the FBI was investigating the embezzlement. In early 2004, charges were filed against Jones and Harkness. One year after the collapse, people finally knew the truth about Angela's Motorsports.



Harkness plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. She was released on bond and promised to testify against her partner. Jones plead guilty to charges of theft, embezzlement, and bank fraud. Awaiting sentencing, Angela returned to stripping.



"Believe it or not, after all this NASCAR stuff came out," Tom West, club-manager said, "she showed up back here for about a week and got her old job back. Then she said she was going to take a month off, get her boobs redone, get a face lift, and then she'd come back."



Angela never returned to her job or police custody. In March 2004, Harkness took her daughter, crossed the Mexican border in her Mercedes, and slipped away from justice. Later that year, US Marshals discovered a letter in her sister's garbage admitting Angela was working as a beautician in Dubai. The United States had no extradition treaty with the UAE, so it was 2007 before Angela was returned to US custody.



Jones and Harkness both served over three years in prison for the Angela's Motorsports scam. After her release from prison, Angela remained in Texas. Records show that she was arrested again on theft of service charges in February 2012. In December 2018, she was arrested on charges of violence against a family member.



While Gary Jones handled the team's financial scams, Angela was behind it all. At her sentencing, federal prosecutor Mark Lane had strong words for to describe her.



"Oh, poor pathetic Angela Harkness. She's abused. She's apparently beautiful. She is one of the most manipulative defendants you've ever had in your courtroom."





References:

* Angela'sMotorsports Website

* Car and Driver, December 2004: Angela Does NASCAR by Jerry Garrett

*Kreytak, Steven. "Garbage Was Her Undoing." The Austin American-Statesman. June 5, 2005.

*Maher, John. "Fueled by Fraud." The Austin American-Statesman. April 25, 2004.

*O'Brian, Marty. "As McLaughlin Can Attest, NASCAR is a Family Affair." Daily Press. February 13, 2003.

*"Stripper Lands in Prison for Fraud." The Austin American-Statesman. May 26, 2007.



----------

Follow me on Twitter @nascarman_rr for more articles and other old pictures. Or email me at nascarman_rr@yahoo.com Opinions expressed in blogs are those of the individual bloggers and do not necessarily represent the views of racing-reference.info.