The 146MPH SRT-4 Is For Sale (Updated: Not Anymore)

"Justin Hughes" (justinhughes54) 09/29/2016 at 10:18 • Filed to: None

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The story of a Dodge SRT-4 (don’t call it a Neon) nailed by the Maine State Police for doing 146mph has gone viral on the interwebs. It seems this very same car is listed !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

UPDATE: Soon after we posted this, the ad was deleted by the author. Fortunately, I took a screenshot before this happened. It’s posted further down.

Read on Right Foot Down or continue below

In case you missed it:

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By a strange coincidence, a car that looks identical to the one in the Maine State Police photos is also !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

At first I thought that driver Tyler Barrows had put his car up for sale to pay for the inevitable fines and legal fees to come from traveling more than double the speed limit on I-95. But it doesn’t add up. For one thing, the Craigslist ad was posted 20 days ago, and Barrows was arrested just yesterday. Additionally, if you zoom in on the license plate in the State Police photo and compare it to photos in the ad, you can tell they are different.

Yet it’s quite clear that they are, in fact, the same car, from the custom bodywork right down to the missing “T-4" from the “SRT-4" badging on the trunk lid. Perhaps Barrows just recently bought the car and was seeing what it can do on the open road? The charges for failure to provide proof of insurance or inspection make it seem more likely that the car was recently purchased and registered, but not yet insured or inspected.

I used to live in Augusta, Maine, not far from Pittsfield, and have driven this section of I-95 countless times. There isn’t much there. I can understand the urge to take your new shiny car, open ‘er up, and see what it can do. But the highway is not the place to do it. I once hit a deer on I-295 further south going the speed limit in a company truck. I still didn’t have enough time or space to slow down enough to avoid it when it crossed the road right in front of me. I was unharmed (the truck and deer, not so much) and not cited by Maine’s finest. But hitting a deer at twice that speed could’ve been fatal for the driver as well as the deer.

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Might I recommend that Barrows keep going a few hours further north on I-95 to Limestone and check out the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ’s events at the former Loring Air Force Base? They run land speed competitions on the 2 5/8 mile long runways formerly used by Strategic Air Command’s B-52s during the Cold War. These provide ample opportunity to find your car’s top speed in a safe environment where police are guaranteed not to harass you. As a bonus, north of Old Town the speed limit on I-95 increases to 75mph, which is the highest speed limit east of the Mississippi River.

I personally drove at the first !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! autocross event held here. As a writer I’m good with words, but words can not describe the size and scale of this place. Instead I’ll show you what it was like in my 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R.

This course mainly used the smaller taxiways, with a detour up and around the concrete loading area for nuclear weapons. (I’m not kidding.) It used only a tiny fraction of the space available at Loring. CMC has returned there for epic events each year since.

The bottom line is if you want to drive this fast, take it to the track. It’s much easier than you think. If I’m wrong about the timeline on the Craigslist ad, you might be able to try to beat this SRT-4's current 146mph record for yourself. Short of the Loring Timing Association itself, who better to certify a car’s speed capabilities than the Maine State Police?

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MonkeePuzzle > Justin Hughes 09/29/2016 at 10:20

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huh. very cool to have a little added info to the story

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > Justin Hughes 09/29/2016 at 10:34

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Right under the Jolpnik link on my Facebook feed, was this craigslist ad.

Justin Hughes > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 09/29/2016 at 10:39

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Too funny! And scary that Facebook has us figured out so well...

TysMagic > Justin Hughes 09/29/2016 at 10:51

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while not related to car stuff - i had shopped meundies and left some stuff in my cart. I then got a target facebook ad with video saying you left this in your cart. Shit is creepy

Justin Hughes > TysMagic 09/29/2016 at 11:24

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Yeah, I’m getting ads from Amazon and SuperBrightLEDs.com for stuff I’ve recently looked at.

CalzoneGolem > Justin Hughes 09/29/2016 at 11:35

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I love the plates in the ad.

Dusty Ventures > Justin Hughes 09/29/2016 at 11:39

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I noticed the Loring Timing Association has a 135 mph speed limit for uncaged cars. Many stock vehicles can exceed that these days. Do you know of any events where someone with a stock vehicle with say a 150+ top speed can wring it out without having to install a cage first?

DanZman > Dusty Ventures 09/29/2016 at 11:42

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If your on the right track and your car can do it, HPDE events allow you to go that fast.

Justin Hughes > CalzoneGolem 09/29/2016 at 11:55

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Perhaps the car achieved 146mph with the aid of an Infinite Improbability Drive?

Justin Hughes > DanZman 09/29/2016 at 11:58

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Hard to find those in New England where we live, though. I think Lime Rock would give you the best top speed, with a fast downhill sweeper onto a long front straight. My 1.6 Miata topped out at a drag limited 115 with the top up - slower with the top down. I’ve ridden in an instructor’s E34 that touched 135.

CalzoneGolem > Justin Hughes 09/29/2016 at 12:03

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Where do you put the tea once you’ve made it?

Justin Hughes > CalzoneGolem 09/29/2016 at 12:05

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Next to the Atomic Vector Plotter.

Dusty Ventures > Justin Hughes 09/29/2016 at 12:59

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Not necessarily restricting it to New England. Just curious if such open events exist outside Bonneville and where they are

djgreenlava > Justin Hughes 09/29/2016 at 19:47

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Sam Posey straight at Lime Rock isn’t long enough?

Justin Hughes > djgreenlava 09/30/2016 at 09:17

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It might be, depending on the car, and how good the driver is at taking the Downhill flat out while keeping the car on the track.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Justin Hughes 09/30/2016 at 10:39

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I’m going to go on the record as saying as far as animals go speed doesn’t make a blind bit of difference, re likelihood of a strike.

5mph faster or slower at the limit, the animal would have passed either in front or behind you. And as you go faster, the change in speed needed to not be in the same place as the animal is even smaller. It’s purely a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and there’s next to nothing you can do about it, since most of the time you can’t see them until they’re running onto the road.

As far as the degree of damage caused, it also depends what you are driving and where you are, eg frequented by deer vs moose. Deer move fast. You won’t see them until they move, and if they happen to cross too close... well too bad. Under those conditions, I’d rather not try to max out a Neon. Small car-big speed-big animal-ouch. A larger vehicle... I might not be too worried. It may hurt the vehicle but the occupants will probably be OK. Moose on the other hand terrify me. They do at least move slow, but you can’t see them as well since they tend to be more active at night and unlike deer they don’t look at the headlights, they turn their heads away. Lowering speed in moose country would be more effective than with deer, since because they tend not to dart in front you do have a ghost of a chance of stopping. Of course the same “I could beat it, or get there after it” thing applies too, but between the sheer size of a moose and the fact that you do have at least a chance of lessening the impact, something that isn’t really given to you with deer, the cautious road is probably best here.

TL;DR Go slow with moose. Deer who cares, you can’t do jack anyway.

Related addition: I was once a passenger in an E-Series van, travelling down the left lane of a 6-8 (can’t remember what at that exact point) lane highway through a relatively built up area (there is a river nearby, but this wasn’t there--I imagine that’s where it came from though) when all of a sudden this brown thing comes hurtling over the CENTRAL barrier. It hit us just beside the first bench. If we’d been going faster, it would have been behind us. If we’d been going a hair slower, it would’ve gone in the windshield and I wouldn’t be telling you the story. If we were going even slower, we’d have probably hit it square on or ran over it. Point is, deer are unpredictable. Neither slower or faster can conclusively be said to be better. And you can’t drive for the rest of your life in the fear that a deer may come from literally anywhere, so just put it out of your mind and whatever happens happens. Deer whistles couldn’t hurt. No idea if they really work, but they’re cheap enough that it’s worth taking the chance...

Justin Hughes > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/30/2016 at 11:36

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There’s something to this. When I hit the deer, it was on a wet road. There were actually two deer. The first one escaped, but I broadsided the second deer with the right corner of the truck. Deer were crossing left to right. I think that if the road was dry I might have had enough extra traction to miss the second deer.

Also, I was in a Mazda B2300 pickup. When I hit the deer, I hit it square in the body. In whatever my personal car was at the time (AW11 MR2 or Saturn SL2, I can’t remember), I would’ve knocked the legs out from under the deer and it would’ve fallen on the hood. This is one of the main dangers of moose hits. You’re pretty much bound to go under the body and have a ton of moose land on top of you. Unsafe at any speed.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Justin Hughes 09/30/2016 at 11:41

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Also with moose hits, they tend to frequent some rugged territory. Twisty road, not much room to dodge even if you have time, if you dodge and get it wrong, you wreck, if you don’t dodge you wreck. Possibility of fatailties high in either case.

Justin Hughes > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/30/2016 at 11:42

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So you wreck whether you’re driving a Dodge or not.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Justin Hughes 09/30/2016 at 11:58

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Pretty much.

ateamfan42 > Justin Hughes 09/30/2016 at 13:10

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You’re pretty much bound to go under the body and have a ton of moose land on top of you. Unsafe at any speed.

Unless you are going so fast you fly out from under the moose before it falls. See, faster is safer!

For those that don’t get it, that was a joke. Seriously, please don’t drive 100+ mph in moose country.

ateamfan42 > Justin Hughes 09/30/2016 at 13:14

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I personally drove at the first Cumberland Motor Club autocross event held here. As a writer I’m good with words, but words can not describe the size and scale of this place. Instead I’ll show you what it was like in my 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R.

A post about Loring always deserves a star. I was there for this event (and certainly remember your SE-R).

Everyone who has been to Loring agrees: words can NOT describe the scale of the place. Photos are pretty much useless at capturing it too. Dashcam footage of driving from one end to another at reasonable (50 - 60 mph) speeds starts to convey the size when you realize how LONG it is taking. But you really must visit the air strip yourself to appreciate it. (Shameless plug: CMC will be back there the first weekend in August 2017.)

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Justin Hughes 09/30/2016 at 15:35

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If the Instagram post is accurate, then Tyler Barrows is entitled to bonus points in several areas.