The 1974 850cc Norton Commando racing bike and sidecar, plus gear were stolen from outside Rangiriri Hotel. Photo / Danielle Zollickhofer
Opportunistic thieves got away with a haul of more than $100,000 worth of classic motorcycles and gear in the early hours of Sunday from outside the Rangiriri Hotel, in north Waikato.
The haul included a unique 1974 racing motorcycle and sidecar, plus distinctive gear and tools, worth more than $50,000.
Devastated victim Jason Rees says the 850cc Norton Commando motorcycle/sidecar was irreplaceable.
“It’s heartbreaking. It’s not just the money, it has a big emotional value. [I] won several races on it ... and people close to us that have now passed away used to help us with [this] bike. If we can’t find it, we will probably have to stop racing,” he says.
“We are budget racers. We are not these big guys on TV,” Rees says.
Rees, a plumber from Whanganui, has been racing bikes since he was 16 years old and was spending the night at the hotel between Huntly and Te Kauwhata to be able to compete in the second round of the NZ Classic Motorcycle Racing Register 2023 Championship at Hampton Downs race track on Sunday.
He, his sidecar rider Shane Perry and the owner of the bike Ron Rees woke Sunday morning to find the whole trailer gone.
CCTV footage from the hotel showed the thieves took the trailer at around 2.30am.
It was soon discovered that two hours earlier, thieves, possibly the same ones, had driven off with another trailer from the hotel, which contained three classic racing bikes and gear, worth around $60,000.
These bikes belonged to Russ and Jacob, a father and son, who had driven several hours to also take part in the racing event and were also asleep at the hotel when the thieves struck.
Rees, Russ and Jacob reported the burglary to the police as soon as they discovered the missing trailers.
After appealing for help via social media, Russ and Jacob went on a two-man mission to recover their bikes, following leads from people on Facebook who had seen the bikes being raced on Hamilton streets. The distinctive race bikes are not street-legal.
“[The people riding the bikes] didn’t have enough time to change the colour of the bikes, but they put number plates on them. It’s pretty easy to tell a race bike from a road bike because race bikes are so much noisier,” Jacob says.
Chasing the numerous tips, Jacob and Russ drove around Hamilton streets on Monday, when they came across a vehicle pulling out of a property. It matched one they saw on the hotel’s security footage taking the trailer.
Jacob says: “When [we] challenged [the man in the vehicle] he took off.”
This didn’t stop the determined duo. They investigated and found other people on the property who denied all knowledge and insisted the bikes were not there, Jacob says.
“We checked at the back of the property [and found] the bikes ... I called the police again and started to retrieve the bikes.
“We weren’t going to wait.”
After they marched off the property with their bikes, they stuck around for the police who were able to also retrieve some of Russ and Jacob’s motorbike gear from inside the house. Their trailer was later found abandoned in Temple View, Hamilton.
Russ says the bikes were “in rough shape”.
“[The thieves] had started stripping parts off. It will cost around $10,000 per bike to get them back to the high standard they were before.”
However, Russ and Jacob are just happy to have their bikes back. “We didn’t expect to retrieve them at all,” Russ says.
Jacob adds: “It would have been an unmeasurable loss if we didn’t recover the bikes. We spent three years building the bikes, racing them, having a good time. You can’t get this back.”
Their tools and other assorted gear are still missing. Russ says the thieves got away with about $25,000 worth of “stuff”.
“What people don’t understand is that when we go to these race meetings, we have to be self-sufficient. We were pretty packed up. We had generators, gazebos, tables, chairs, food, fuel, spare tires, tools, wheel-changing gear,” Russ says.
A police spokesperson told Waikato Herald police received reports of a burglary on Rangiriri Rd on Saturday night.
“Three motorbikes, which were stolen, were recovered from a Hamilton address on Monday 27 February. Enquiries are ongoing to locate tools stolen at the same time, and a racing bike and trailer which was stolen the same night an hour later,” the spokesperson said.
“Police are following positive lines of enquiry to locate the offenders who stole the three motorbikes.”
The trailer is a white enclosed trailer with Blue Squares, registration D570M. If you have seen the trailer or the motorbike/sidecar, please contact the police on 105 or via https://www.police.govt.nz/use-105 using Update Report and quote file number 230226/5598.
Jason says: “I just want the bike back. I wouldn’t even press charges.”
Jacob says people on Facebook had seen the motorbike and sidecar at the Hamilton property where he and his father found their bikes. However, when they recovered their bikes, the sidecar wasn’t there.
Police say: “Enquiries are ongoing, including the possibility of the two incidents being linked.”
Rangiriri Hotel director Tina Michie, who was out of town when the burglary happened, says it was an isolated incident.
“Police have the footage from our security cameras and the customers were also shown the footage,” Michie says.
Jacob and Russ say they stayed at the hotel about 20 times and nothing ever happened before.
According to Michie’s understanding, the cars and trailers were parked across the road from the hotel.
“There is another parking spot, closer to the hotel, between two buildings ... This is directly below the accommodation and if the trailers would have been backed between there, it would have been more difficult to get the trailer out without waking people up,” Michie says.