First off, as any intelligent person knows, any street racing is really a FAIL, but any/all of us with sports cars exceed the speed limits and rules of the road occasionally. However, I've rarely experienced such an epic FAIL as I saw last week!

I was heading down I-70 out of the Rockies foothills west of Denver to go pick up my kids from school, which is a very long (10+ mile) downhill with some decent curves at certain points, especially as you start to get close to where the road emerges from the mountains. I was coming from about an hour away from their school, and always leave myself a 15 minute cushion to allow for accidents and such since my kids are only 6 and 8 and I don't want them by themselves waiting outside of school. Thus, I was only doing 60 or so coming down the hill as I was getting close to their school and was very early, plus this hill is well known for having state troopers parked every mile or two along the whole long downhill.

The speed limit for trucks is only 55 due to the hill, but 65 for cars, and a loaded truck ahead of me in the right lane of the 3 lanes was only doing maybe 50-55 as I approached. I clicked on my left signal and started to move into the middle lane when an aqua green mid-90s Corvette suddenly came flying up next to me and changed into the middle lane, cutting me off for no reason since the truck was the only other vehicle for about a half mile ahead or behind. If I hadn't swerved back into the right lane, he would definitely have side-swiped me. He proceeded to stare at me and keep pace for a short distance, then accelerated a couple of hundred feet ahead. It was obviously modded with some sort of forced induction due to how fast he was able to accelerate, and I guess the mid-20ish driver thought he was going to teach the Porsche driver a lesson or something similar? Who knows what idiots think.....

I signalled again and moved to the middle lane, at which point he again slammed on his brakes and swerved between lanes ahead of me, causing me to have to slam on my brakes and swerve to avoid him. I was getting annoyed very quickly and attempted to read his license plate so I could positively identify the car if necessary, which he must have taken as a challenge to race since he took off at a very high rate of speed. I watched his next moves in disbelief as he approached a blockade of vehicles about a half mile ahead with a tractor-trailer in the right lane, a line of various vehicles in the middle lane, and a big Lexus SUV in the left lane. He came up on the Lexus within a foot or two (at most) of its rear bumper, sat there for a brief second, then attempted to fit into an impossibly small space between the Lexus and a Toyota Corolla in the middle lane. His car's nose basically dipped way down for several seconds as he braked hard behind the Lexus to within a tiny distance, then bounced way back up as he slammed on the gas and tried to go between the two vehicles, or maybe to the right lane? I don't know, there was clearly nowhere for him to go since the cars in the middle lane were all bunched very closely together at a car length or so apart. I doubt a Smart car would have into the space, nevermind a Corvette!

His front left corner proceeded to make contact with the right rear corner of the Lexus hard enough to lift it into the air slightly and push it sideways almost 45 degrees before it slid off his hood and back to the pavement, and at the same time side-swiped the Toyota hard enough to send it careening from the middle lane to the right breakdown lane and back a few times before it regained control. Chunks of car were flying all over the road from all three vehicles and possibly more. It was hard to tell whether he hit a couple of other vehicles too or if they were just swerving to avoid the accident. I got a few dings in my paint since the entire width of the road had car pieces flying up in the air, but thankfully since I have at least half a brain I had hung back well away from the nutjob and other cars.

Thankfully neither the Lexus and Toyota, nor any of the other cars around the accident (there were at least 10 within a half dozen car lengths including a couple of tractor-trailers) lost control since they were all doing over 70 mph on a steep, windy portion of the downhill, which could easily have led to a rollover, cars entirely crushed, people dead, etc. I hit my brakes and attempted to avoid the worst of it, but thankfully I glanced in my rearview mirror no more than a couple of seconds later to see the trucker I'd passed was about to rear-end me since he couldn't slow down on the hill! He entirely filled up my rearview mirror but I slammed on my gas to get out of his way as the Corvette, Lexus, Toyota, and at least a couple of more vehicles pulled off to both sides ahead of me. With how bad the accident/impact had been, people had to pull off wherever they could, which meant cars were going to both of the narrow shoulders.

I've owned Porsches as well as STIs and other performance cars for over 15 years, and had many, many people try and get me to race them, and seen many, many stupid drivers do incredibly stupid things, but this had to take the cake. Excessive speed (125+ and probably closer to 150 in my estimation on a very busy highway), no awareness of traffic/other cars, no concept of how big his car was, trying to race somebody who had no interest in racing, and on and on with just sheer stupidity!

I'd really like to know what happened to the guy in terms of damage to his vehicle and all of the tickets he got, but I just didn't want to get involved since I had to get to my kids' school and there were multiple other witnesses who could tell the cops what the guy had done (though myself and the trucker who almost hit me had the best view). I'm hoping it teaches him a lesson but how do you teach a rock?

 

You should really have stopped if only to leave your details with one of the drivers he hit asa witness and laugh at the ***** in the vette !!!!

 

Saw the same sort of things a lot when I lived in Nevada....

I never forget on the one DAY it snowed there I was 100 miles between LV and California... no-one within bully... I was going 65 in my old Esprit and a guy comes right up on my tail..... I mean right up on my bumper.... snow was coming in sideways... and the wind was about 30mph or so (not too safe)

I had my dog with me. The guy pulls out after tailing me for a good 5 miles in which time I slowed to 55 then 50.... he pulls out, sits in the dangerous oncoming traffic lane for a good 1/2 mile then pulls in front of me, brakes... gives me the finger and sits at 50 mph

I pulled off the road and sat there shaking for 10 minutes... called the cops on that highway number thingy with his license plate...

An hour and a half later I passed the idiots Vette surrounded by 2 HWP cars

Winning NOT

 

BTW I pray none of the nice people were killed or badly hurt

 

There are a lot of people that should not be allowed on the road let alone be in a high HP car! This guy was clearly one of them. The most important thing is that no one was hurt in the process. Hope the guys gets punished enough to make it think about his actions and grow up.

I will say I am impressed with one thing, You fit 2 kids in your 911!! thats pretty amazing.

 

You should have stopped and left your phone number with the guy driving the Lexus, and explained that you needed to go pick up your kids but to let him know you saw the whole thing. In fact, I'd call whatever local police department is in that area or highway patrol and tell them you saw the accident and give them the details.

 

70 is a great chunk of road.

 

That stretch of I-70 is dangerous. I see stupid stuff there all the time.

The biggest issue with I-70, either going uphill or downhill is the speed differential between the lanes. The right lane is typically occupied by 18-wheelers going 35 - 50 mph. The left lane is frequently occupied by people in Range Rover Sports going 85 mph. The middle lane is "no man's land" that is occupied by people trying to navigate their way through the mess.

 

Another CO resident here, and I know that stretch well. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people are on i70. Most of my time up there is behind the wheel of my diesel with about 10k behind me. It must be something about how I drive my 911 (generally slow and boring), I never get raced. Even in my STi (520 hp to the ground), it rarely happened.

Not sure if there is a way to search accident reports, but maybe on the state patrol's site?

 

That sounds like young male stupidity. I remember my own shenanigans, but luckily had nothing even remotely approaching a modded Corvette to fool around in. I feel like an old man now yelling at everyone driving like an idiot...

Glad no one was hurt!

 

I ended up calling the next day and leaving my info with the police, but nobody has called me. Apparently they got enough info from the scene and other drivers...

Yup, my 8 year old is big enough to sit in the front and I have the wiring harness plug for the seatbelt relay that disengages the airbag so it won't go off in an accident. My 6 year old sits behind her (which he constantly complains about!).

Yup, that is definitely the biggest issue with that stretch of the road. Whether you're going up or down, there is guaranteed to be truckers going very slow in the right lane. It's one of those places where you love to have the power of the Turbo (and the brakes too of course!) to be able to pull in/out of traffic safely!

I looked but I can't find anything. I think that's Jefferson County, but the state patrol does that stretch of road by themselves as far as I know and not the JeffCo Sherriff's Dept.