Dodge Challenger Driver Arrested For Doing 145 MPH, Flipping Off Tokyo Speed Cameras
Going so fast, it took police two years to catch up—seriously.
Police in Tokyo have finally arrested a man who was allegedly spotted driving 145 mph his Dodge Challenger on an expressway—and flipping off the speed cameras that recorded his impromptu Mid Night Club audition—after a two-year search, The Asahi Shimbun reports.
On the night of January 29, 2016, authorities say forty-one-year-old Yoshimune Shirai piloted his muscle car onto the Chuo Expressway and accelerated to nearly 150 mph. The fateful run was tracked by Tokyo's Orbis speed camera system, which captured an image of the Challenger flying down the road with the driver's middle finger raised proudly in the air. Shirai was arrested on Thursday.
It took more than two years to track him down in part because the Challenger was missing its front license plate. However, the region's extensive network of speed cameras eventually captured five more images of the car speeding in various locations, and police were able to piece together a positive identification...of the car, that is.
So far, Shirai has reportedly proclaimed his innocence, telling investigators that there's no proof that he was the one behind the wheel at the time.
Japan has a strong history of street racing, immortalized in part by the famous Mid Night Club racers and other crews that were active in the 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately, you needed to hit 160 mph to join their ranks—so it looks like Shirai missed the mark in more ways than one.