Last Sunday, retired NASCAR driver and current Fox Sports analyst Darrell Waltrip flew home to Nashville to discover that his black Lexus sports utility vehicle had been stolen – sort of.

When Waltrip made his way out to the parking lot of the private Tennessee airport, he noticed that a similar looking black Mercedes SUV was parked right next to the vacant spot that had once held his automobile.

“I went back inside and said, ‘Guys, somebody stole my car,'” said Waltrip. “Everybody had this sheepish look. This one kid said, ‘DW, I think I know where your car is.'”

As it turned out, a few hours before the NASCAR legend arrived back at the airport, Florida quarterback Tim Tebow landed with his entourage, which included his brother, his agent and Will Bartholomew, head the Nashville-area training facility, D1 Sports,. The group had just returned from the 2010 NFL Combine where Tebow had worked out for professional scouts and coaches.

Bartholomew, who was the last one of the group to leave the airport, was told to take Tebow’s agent’s car and meet everybody back at the D1 campus.

Unfortunately, Bartholomew walked up to Waltrip’s Lexus – which was unlocked – hit the pushbutton-start ignition switch, and hit the road behind the Florida quarterback and the rest of his party.

Luckily for the Tebow clan, Waltrip found humor in the situation and even considered reporting the car stolen as a gaffe.

“I was going to call the police, have them pull (Tebow) over and scare the fire out of him.” Waltrip laughed, according to the Tennessean.

“I wanted them to tell him they knew he was a fine Christian boy, but that he just couldn’t steal people’s cars,” he added. “My wife told me that would embarrass him and that I didn’t want to do that to him.”

After Bartholomew learned what happened, he returned NASCAR analyst’s Lexus the next day.

And what lesson did Darrell Waltrip learn? “Don’t leave your car unlocked. Because you never know what celebrity might take it.”