U.S. marshals rev up auction with confiscated Indy car

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

Anyone in the market for an Indy race car?

The U.S. Marshals Service seized a 1994 Lola T9400 from a corrupt Las Vegas businessman in 2005, and they're finally ready to auction it off. The carbon fiber race car was a backup for Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendyk and the opening bid is set at $17,000.

Gentlemen, start your engines.

On any given day, Nevada marshals have about $9 million in seized goods sitting in storage. Every month they get rid of about $500,000 worth , including cars, houses, land, watches, other jewelry and cold cash - items the government has determined were purchased with ill-gotten gains or used in criminal activity, or must be taken from an owner who failed to pay taxes.

The items bought by crime are often high - end. Still, an Indy race car is an unusual sight on the federal auction block.

The 850-horsepower car can hit 200 mph. It takes a team of people to start the ignition. It runs on methanol. It's reportedly in good condition. It needs constant babying.

If the car isn't regularly exercised, it could seize up and stop working. To maintain the car's value, the Marshals Service has had to contract out service to turn the car on and off every once in a while, and move it back and forth now and then. And because the race car requires special fuel, they're keeping it in an undisclosed garage at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

It's taken the marshals almost two years to get the car auctioned off because of complications in appraising its value. First, there was the matter of confirming just how old the car was; court documents said it was built in 1999, though appraisers confirmed it's really a '94. Then, everyone had a different idea about how much the car was worth. Drastically different. This is a serious matter when the money earned goes to the government.

"Some people were way off," said Fidencio Rivera, chief deputy U.S. marshal for the District of Nevada.

The marshals went through three appraisers to get a satisfactory figure.

The car belonged to Frank Kolk, who is sitting in a New Mexico prison on charges of fraud, money laundering and tax evasion. The Las Vegas corporate consultant pled guilty in 2006 to defrauding an Arizona real estate development company. Kolk, 50, wrote bogus payroll checks to himself, billed his credit cards to the company and ran a handful of other schemes, all while failing to report about $2 million in income to the IRS.

Kolk used the money to buy a mansion in Tucson, but mainly, he used it to buy cars. Many cars. The marshals have seized Kolk's two Porsches, two Mustangs (one circa 1969), two Toyotas and a Dodge truck.

The Indy car must have been Kolk's crown jewel.

It was seized with a matching trailer, a 28-foot - long metal box that features a photo of the red and white Lola race car on the side.

The two seized items are clearly a pair, but are being auctioned separately at Bid4Assets.com.

Bidding starts May 1 and ends two days later.

The race car starts at $17,000 and will mount in minimum $500 bid increments. It has been viewed online more than 13,000 times in less than two weeks.

The trailer starts at $5,000, with $500 minimum bid increments. It has been viewed online more than 10,000 times.

Both items have a reserve price, though the auction company won't disclose the figure.

Interested parties who want to kick the tires first can make an appointment to see the seized assets on Wednesday through the auction Web site, which handles federal auctions for Marshals Divisions throughout the United States.

Those in the know watch online seizure auctions closely, Bid4Assets marketing manager Anu Karnik Kelly said.

"Forfeited items from the government are always perceived as great deals," she said.

The car was built for Luyendyk, who won the Indy 500 twice but never in the red-and-white Lola. It was the Dutch driver's backup before it was a collector's ill-gotten item.

It's business as usual for the Marshals Service, Rivera said.

"On any given day, a million dollars can come into our office , a Rolex, art work, jewelry, computers, weapons, boats, Hummers," he said, "and race cars."