The mystery started on Monday on Twitter. Mr. Boogity Boogity/3-time NASCAR Cup champ Darrell Waltrip sent out two cryptic tweets:
@AllWaltrip:Tim Tebow took my car last night , problem is I didn’t tell him he could , he took it by mistake , its 3 o’clock and he hasn’t returned it !3:52 p.m.
@AllWaltrip: got my car back , trying to get the rest of the story , thought about reporting it had been stolen , Tebow would have died if I had of ! 8:59 p.m.
Black Mercedes
Thus began the great Tim Tebow-Darrell Waltrip Car Caper.
So what exactly happened? D1 Sports, where Tebow has been training in Nashville, and Waltrip filled in all the hilarious details:
Tim, his brother and one of his agents, Jim Denton, drove to a private airport in Nashville to fly out for the NFL combine last week. Denton drove his black Mercedes SUV. Robbie and Tim drove separately in their own car.
Robbie and Tim returned back from the combine on Sunday evening with D1 CEO Will Bartholomew, who was told to drive Denton’s car back to D1 headquarters. Bartholomew found the black SUV unlocked with the push-start key inside. He drove off in it, while Tim and Robbie drove away in their own car.
Or black Lexus?
Later that night, Waltrip returned to the private Nashville airport after the NASCAR race in Las Vegas to find his black Lexus SUV gone. The only black SUV in the parking lot? A Mercedes. He asked the folks at the airport what happened to his car. They all looked at each other sheepishly.
“They turned to me and said, ‘Tim Tebow has your car,’” Waltrip said in a telephone interview. “I said, ‘What is he doing with my car? I didn’t tell him he could take my car.’ The guys said, ‘We thought you told him he could drive your car.’ I know the guy, but I’ve never met the man. I didn’t tell him he could take my car.”
Waltrip was with his daughter and the two of them drove off, wondering how Tebow had his car. He then got a cell phone message from a friend who spotted his car at a local restaurant, with a tall lanky guy getting out of it. At this point, Waltrip decides he wants to call the local sheriff’s office, report the car stolen and have Tebow pulled over as a prank.
“I was going to call the police and have them say, ‘I thought you were a nice Christian boy. We didn’t know you were a car thief, too!’” Waltrip said with a laugh.
His wife talked him out of that idea, thankfully. On Monday, the D1 folks returned Waltrip’s car to the airport.
It turns out, both black SUVs were parked next to each other. Bartholomew mistakenly took the Lexus, not the Mercedes. The two cars look very similar, and it was dark. Waltrip later learned Tebow was never in his car.
“Everyone can laugh about it now,” D1 spokesman Matt Toy said. “We have laughed quite a bit here.”
Waltrip said he has not spoken with Tebow or the folks at D1, but has gotten a good laugh about the mix-up as well. The biggest lesson he learned?
“Don’t leave your car unlocked. Because you never know what celebrity might take it.”
