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Man arrested for stealing part of Paul Walker Porsche wreck

Humans are odd creatures. Some of us collect things associated with bad events, particularly when it comes to cars. Your author, for example, has the grille of his wrecked 2004 Mini Cooper S hanging on the wall. As a more extreme example, an 18-year-old Californian is in trouble with the LA police, but not for taking an item from his own car accident. Instead, he has been arrested for stealing from the wreck of the Porsche Carrera GT that killed actor Paul Walker and racer Roger Rodas.
And it wasn't a small piece, either. It was the Carrera GT's carbon-fiber roof panel. Making matters worse is word that the theft happened while the tow truck that was hauling the wrecked Porsche was sitting in traffic. According to the LA Sheriff's Department report, "A witness saw a male exit a vehicle that was following the tow truck. The male grabbed a piece of the wrecked Porsche off the tow truck bed." Besides the eyewitnesses, it didn't help that images of the roof panel were later posted on Instagram.
The man, Jameson Witty, was later arrested at his home, where police also found the roof panel. The driver of the car Witty was in when he took the roof panel, meanwhile, is planning on surrendering to the police, according to CNN. It remains unclear if the district attorney's office will charge the two, although if it does, they'll be facing felony grand theft and tampering with evidence.

Five cursed and haunted cars

Any kid lucky enough to grow up in Detroit is familiar with the Henry Ford Museum. It's huge, full of shiny things and a great place to take a child and let them burn off some energy. After several field trips and weekend outings however, the dusty concept vehicles and famous aircraft tend to lose their punch for youngsters. As a fifth grader, I was already gazing on the museum's many gems with glassy eyes. On yet another school trip, we made our way to John F. Kennedy's death car, a gleaming black Lincoln limo. The aging volunteer docent told our little group something I had never heard before. "You know, this car is haunted. Several employees have reported seeing a gray presence right here," he said, pointing to the back passenger side seat. I perked up. Now here was something I had never heard before. A haunted car? Sure, it happened in Goosebumps, but this was real life. It made sense, in a way. Cars can be violent, emotional places. That's certainly the case with JFK's limo, as well as the other four cars on this list. And maybe those gut-wrenching deaths can permanently doom a car. 5. Archduke Franz Ferdinand's Graf & Stift Death Limo World War I tends to be a forgotten war, despite being pretty terrible in its own right and setting the stage for the entire 20th Century. The French forces, for instance, lost more lives in the first month of WWI than the US did in the entire Civil War. Everyone who has been through a freshman world history course knows the conflict started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were shot by a Bosnian anarchist. The crazy thing is, Ferdinand had already avoided an attempt on his life that day, and was actually on his way to the hospital to comfort those who had been injured in the crossfire. One of the would-be assassins simply walked out of a cafe and saw his intended target sitting in front of him where the open-air limo had stalled. The archduke and his wife were shot through their heads and throats. Their deaths would not be the last caused by the limo. Throughout the war and into the 1920s, the limo was owned by fifteen different people and involved in six accidents and thirteen deaths, not counting the 17 million or so killed in the war triggered by the Archduke's assassination. The first person to own the car after the Archduke was an Austrian general named Potiorek, who went insane while riding in the car through Vienna.

Mark Webber hospitalized as Porsche takes first WEC victory, Toyota wins championship [UPDATE]

It was a mixed bag for the Porsche team at the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo this weekend – the last race of its first season in the FIA World Endurance Championship. On the one hand, the German team took its first win since launching its LMP1 effort at the start of this season. On the other, its star driver suffered a massive crash that left him in the hospital. The crash occurred with less than half an hour to go when Mark Webber, who was running sixth in the #20 Porsche 919 Hybrid, lost control at Turn 14 at the Interlagos circuit – the same spot where he crashed his Jaguar F1 car during the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix – and crashed tail-first into the barrier. Both Webber and Matteo Cressoni (driver of the #90 Ferrari 458 Italia with which Webber collided) were evacuated to the trackside medical center and were then taken to the nearby Hospital Bandeirantes. Both were reportedly conscious throughout but are undergoing further testing, described as being in "satisfactory" condition by the FIA medical official on the scene. The occurrence of the crash so close to the end of the race, and the time it took to clear the wreckage, meant there was not enough time for a restart, so the race was completed under the safety car. But when the field did cross the finish line, it was the #14 Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Mark Lieb that took the checkered flag – marking the first time that Porsche has won an endurance prototype race since 1989. Of course, that solitary victory was not enough for Porsche to take the title, which went to the Toyota TS 040 driven by former F1 drivers Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson, who finished the race in second place ahead of the Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro driven by the retiring Tom Kristensen and his co-pilots Lucas di Grassi and Loic Duval. Top honors for the season in LMP2 went to Sergey Zlobin for SMP Racing in the Oreca-Nissan, while Ferrari took the GT title. UPDATE: Mark Webber released the following statement on his condition: "I'm quite sore this morning, am pretty bruised and have got a stinking headache. I've got no recollection of the accident or how it happened. The team is looking into the details to find out more.