Hellcat crash near my house

[XS22J8R]

This happened about a mile north of my house the other night. I heard all the sirens that evening.
What’s a 21 year old kid doing in a Hellcat anyway? Dads car? Maybe stolen?
He must have been hauling azz, the damage is massive with the hood ending up 100’ from the car.
Hope the SUV driver recovers fully.
Police Confirm Wrong-Way Driver Died on US-12 North of Euclid Ave in Arlington Heights; Identity Released
There was actually another fatal accident at the intersection east of this one the previous week, no performance cars involved in that one as I recall.

 

[Budnicks]

21 is plenty old enough to buy one, or be responsible owner too
if they had a really good job

probably like you said; "spoiled kid, wasted $$$"

Poor kitty/hellcat
it's usually the Mustangs causing them


hi-performance cars & low performance drivers
no matter the age, doesn't mix well

going the wrong damn way too

 

[Ron H]

Wow, an unusual amount of detail about a car crash. No indication (yet?) of whether the Challenger driver owned the ride or was loaned or stolen? If a Hellcat, be surprised a 21-year-old could afford those wheels, but it’s an older model. We have our slants, mine is having a 700-800HP ride requires someone who can resist getting stupid at all times. My ride at 21 was a car having about 375 HP and squirrely enough being lucky I didn’t wrap it around a pole or tree. Couple of guys I was acquainted with weren’t so fortunate, died young and dead now for a half-century, plus.

Here’s a guy with this car maybe residing in the Chicago burbs? My elder cousin lived in Mt. Prospect getting himself a brand-new ’64 Polara 426, 4-spd from Grand Spaulding at 18, but that was then and he mostly ran it at drag strips in the tri-state area…yeah some street racing he got away with. Still, around half the HP, granted lacking the safety features of modern rides.

Again, JMO, as others will quickly disagree, where does one have the thrills of a 700-800HP vehicle unless taking it to a drag strip? Reason why I opted out of mega-power with my last resto. Seen too many videos of guys in Challengers and Chargers totaling them…looking completely incapable to control them. Guy having a sweet ’68 Charger built 440 Charger, decided he wanted another 100HP plus get-go, having a shop do the build. Damn, he drove it about a week before wrapping around a tree..

 

[XS22J8R]

Even if the kid afforded the car, insurance for a 21 year old on a hellcat would be nuts, $6000 a year or even more!
Notice the vanity plate “POOR”? I do recall seeing a purple Hellcat with a young looking driver at the Mt Prospect cruise night a couple weeks ago. Yikes I wonder if it was him?
I did some crazy stuff at age 18 and 19 with my Challenger T/A, including one incident right out of Vanishing Point that I cringe thinking back on, every time I see the movie. So I shouldn’t judge, it’s a miracle me, let alone the T/A, survived my misspent alcohol fueled late teens!

 

[Cop car wagon]

I know you like your life, your house, maybe even a job. But its time to move.
Chicagoland ain't what it use to be.

 

[XS22J8R]

I know you like your life, your house, maybe even a job. But its time to move.
Chicagoland ain't what it use to be.

I’ve known that for years and have been planning to move to NW Indiana. Not finding the time to look but someday hopefully soon.
Washington state is no bargain either for that matter.

 

[chargervert]

Even if the kid afforded the car, insurance for a 21 year old on a hellcat would be nuts, $6000 a year or even more!
Notice the vanity plate “POOR”? I do recall seeing a purple Hellcat with a young looking driver at the Mt Prospect cruise night a couple weeks ago. Yikes I wonder if it was him?
I did some crazy stuff at age 18 and 19 with my Challenger T/A, including one incident right out of Vanishing Point that I cringe thinking back on, every time I see the movie. So I shouldn’t judge, it’s a miracle me, let alone the T/A, survived my misspent alcohol fueled late teens!

Few people know that the Director of the movie Vanishing Point actually owned a T/A Challenger,and it was used to pilot the car in the film. That T/A Challenger was the reason the Challenger was chosen for the role in the film.

 

[chargervert]

This happened about a mile north of my house the other night. I heard all the sirens that evening.
What’s a 21 year old kid doing in a Hellcat anyway? Dads car? Maybe stolen?
He must have been hauling azz, the damage is massive with the hood ending up 100’ from the car.
Hope the SUV driver recovers fully.
Police Confirm Wrong-Way Driver Died on US-12 North of Euclid Ave in Arlington Heights; Identity Released
There was actually another fatal accident at the intersection east of this one the previous week, no performance cars involved in that one as I recall.

Yet another case of too much car and not enough driver!

 

[PlymCrazy]

Hopefully the other driver makes it. That whole situation sucks.

 

[Ron H]

Even if the kid afforded the car, insurance for a 21 year old on a hellcat would be nuts, $6000 a year or even more!
Notice the vanity plate “POOR”? I do recall seeing a purple Hellcat with a young looking driver at the Mt Prospect cruise night a couple weeks ago. Yikes I wonder if it was him?
I did some crazy stuff at age 18 and 19 with my Challenger T/A, including one incident right out of Vanishing Point that I cringe thinking back on, every time I see the movie. So I shouldn’t judge, it’s a miracle me, let alone the T/A, survived my misspent alcohol fueled late teens!

Funny you mention it, I did a few dumb things after seeing the flick at an outdoor theater in my ’70 Cuda 4-sp driving back home. It was a 383, but enough go-go to get yourself dead or someone else. Have counted my blessings neither happened and didn’t trash the car…despite some opportunities.

 

[Detective D]

Sounds like kids on motorcycles and a VW were also messing around, this may have been an unwilling drag race, but more then likely they passed the butthurt guy in teh Challenger and he decided he needed to show them up. By passing them in a left turn lane I guess.

Tons and TONS of videos out there about youngsters wrecking there Dodge cars. Even if they somehow manage to handle the car, they end up with small peener syndrome or something and take every action of other motorists as some slight against their big HP car. I would not be surprised in the slightest if the motorcycles and the VW had noisy exhaust and the challenger driver got butthurt because they were going 5mph faster then him so he "had to show them."

He showed them alright.

 

[XS22J8R]

I looked the kid up online to see if I could find a picture, to see if he looked like the young person I saw with the purple Hellcat at the local cruise a few weeks ago.
I found a Linked In profile for him, with only one not so good picture of him so I still don't have any idea if it was the kid at the cruise. I am not good with facial ID but seem to recall the guy at the cruise looked mid to late 20s and larger build, maybe even Asian, but again, I have poor facial recognition skills.
The profile said he's worked at the warehouse of a local Ford Dealer for 5 years and was getting a marketing degree at a University in the city.
The article said one of the motorcycle riders was a newbie biker with an older rider who cut the younger guy off, when he was talking to the reporter. That seems suspicious that he was worried the newbie might say something incriminating. They had stuck around after the accident though, so the police probably got their info.
Very sad though, a few moments of youthful indiscretion cost him his life, badly injured an innocent motorist, and gave Dodge muscle car owners yet another black eye.

 

[68BabyBlue]

I’ve known that for years and have been planning to move to NW Indiana. Not finding the time to look but someday hopefully soon.
Washington state is no bargain either for that matter.

I lived in Valparaiso when I was doing my time out there in the 90s. My employer had already exited from Illinois a few years earlier. Central PA is better than both, if you don't need a big job as part of your lifestyle.

 

[XS22J8R]

I'm planning to retire soon, and the places most desirable to me are Tennessee or maybe Kentucky. However my 90 year old mom is still alive, thankfully, but lives in assisted living not too far from where I live. My woke sociopath sister used to live in the area but her and her husband packed up and moved to Michigan a few years ago leaving me the only one around to look after my mom. My mom loves her place and isn't moving until they carry her off in a hearse, so she wouldn't be following me if I moved 400 miles away, so I think southeast Wisconsin and northwest Indiana are the only places I could move to that are close enough I can still go see my mom or help her out without having to stay somewhere overnight.
Wisconsin has some issues too, so that leaves Indiana as the only realistic locale for me to flee to. Also, after living in the same house for almost 35 years, the thought of trying to pack up everything and move all in a matter of weeks is overwhelming to me, as a guy with no family to help out with that task. I could swing 2 houses for a while, the mortgage on my house has been paid off for awhile and my finances are in good shape, and to move stuff and my car fleet over the border piecemeal over a period of time, seems very doable for me.
I don't expect to find any other place in the US to be safe from crazy wreckless drivers these days, so I guess I question how a thread about a horrible accident happening near my house turns into a bunch of unsolicited advice about moving though? Taxes, politics and to a lesser extent crime are the factors in my motivation to flee, not feeling unsafe while driving.

 

[Budnicks]

I don't expect to find any other place in the US to be safe from crazy wreckless drivers these days, so I guess I question how a thread about a horrible accident happening near my house turns into a bunch of unsolicited advice about moving though? Taxes, politics and to a lesser extent crime are the factors in my motivation to flee, not feeling unsafe while driving.

 

[chargervert]

I’ve known that for years and have been planning to move to NW Indiana. Not finding the time to look but someday hopefully soon.
Washington state is no bargain either for that matter.

]

Funny you mention it, I did a few dumb things after seeing the flick at an outdoor theater in my ’70 Cuda 4-sp driving back home. It was a 383, but enough go-go to get yourself dead or someone else. Have counted my blessings neither happened and didn’t trash the car…despite some opportunities.

Everytime I saw Vanishing Point in television,my 70 383 4 speed Challenger R/T used to get thrashed beyond belief! I wasted the clutch trying to replicate those full throttle speed shifts!

 

[XS22J8R]

Shortly after I graduated high school, I was at a light in my Challenger waiting to turn left onto a 4 lane road. Light turned green and I floored it, was happily hauling butt in the left lane passing cars in the right lane, when a car ahead does a lane change in front of me. I swerved left into the opposite direction lanes to miss him, thankfully no one traveling the opposite direction at the time or I would have ended up like that Hellcat driver, except dead at 18 instead of 21.
There’s a scene just like that in Vanishing Point, except Kowalski didn’t have a passenger reaching his right hand out the window flipping the lane changer off like I did!
That friend of mine died riding a Ninja 5 years later. I don’t know how me or the rest of the guys I knew back then managed to live, we did some stupid **** and got in a lot of accidents back in the day!

 

[68BabyBlue]

I’ve heard the expression many times that it’s better to be lucky than smart. I learned early on I wasn’t lucky, so I tried to adjust, and I’ve managed to get old.

 

[Ron H]

Not far from where I reside now, there’s an infamous twisty-hilly road, known as Hog’s Back, narrow with steep drops off’s both sides, heavily wooded area. It has one hell of a hill on it that drops radically with a 90-degree bend some 150-yards or so beyond. Many crashes back when, a few fatals. It was a place to take your date on a scary ride, spooky area after dark. One night, at least smart enough to not have anyone along, took my Cuda on that road three times, each time I’d drive it faster. That hill drop put your gut in your throat. Last run before saying I better stop it, was taking the hill at 60mph in 2nd gear hearing the tires chirp, then slow it down to make the bend. A few decades later drove it again, this time doing the speed limit and thought w-in-tf was I thinking..