Indiana State Trooper Hits 150 MPH To Chase Down Speeding Dodge Challenger Hellcat

Have Hellcat, will speed.

byKyle Cheromcha|
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The driver of a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat gave Indiana State Police one of their fastest chases ever on Tuesday evening after a trooper spotted the high-performance muscle car flying down I-90 and was unable to catch up despite reaching speeds of 150 mph in his pursuit vehicle.

But as the ISP's gloating news release titled "160 Mile Per Hour Hellcat Tamed On The Indiana Toll Road" hints, the Hellcat driver eventually got his due—which, in this case, is a reckless driving charge. He was reportedly passing through Indiana on his way to Maryland, and while we empathize with the desire to put the hammer down when crossing a Midwestern state, doing 160 mph is actually slower than following the speed limit when you factor in the inevitable night in jail.

Trooper Dustin Eggert had just finished up assisting a motorist with engine trouble on the side of the Toll Road in LaPorte County at around 7 p.m. on Tuesday when he saw the 707-horsepower Hemi Orange Challenger Hellcat whiz past him at an extremely high rate of speed. Eggert sped up to try and close the gap, and he noticed the Hellcat "continued to pull away" as he reached 150 mph in his own car.

The Hellcat in question., Indiana State Police

Keep in mind that this is just after rush hour on a major highway; Eggert noted in his report that the Challenger was bobbing and weaving through normal-speed traffic like it was at a standstill. The impromptu Vanishing Point remake came to an abrupt end a few minutes (and eleven miles) later when the driver got blocked by two side-by-side semi-trucks, at which point Eggert was able to catch up and pull over 38-year-old J. Jesus Duran Sandoval.

Sandoval admitted that he had been driving "a bit more than 160" and was immediately arrested and taken to the county jail. Believe it or not, he's actually the second Challenger Hellcat driver to get busted for hitting 160 mph on that very road in the last year. 

When these situations come up, it often becomes a question of whether the officer was right to match those dangerous speeds on a public road. All we can say is that Indiana state law gives troopers latitude to exceed the speed limit during a chase "if the person who drives the vehicle does not endanger life or property." Pursuits themselves are only supposed to occur "when the necessity of immediate apprehension clearly outweighs the level of danger created by the pursuit."

Of course, the driver in this case was already speeding when the officer began to chase him. A reckless maniac weaving through traffic at 160 mph does present an immediate and obvious danger to the public, and chances are police would argue that adding an officer with high-speed training to the mix doesn't increase that danger enough to outweigh the benefits of stopping the offender. It's also worth mentioning that Eggert backed off once he reached 150 mph and radioed ahead to warn other units instead of pushing his car any further.

And as the Indiana State Police ominously concludes in the release, troopers "will take necessary action" to enforce the rules of the road—something this Hellcat driver won't forget any time soon.

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