Tire Blowout at 130 miles Per Hour.

In the late spring of 1981 I attended a Patrol meeting at the Division Office located in Rock Springs, Wyoming. The weather was nice and it was late enough that snow would not be a problem and as I left my patrol vehicle on the way into the building I was prompted to look at my rear tires. I had two snow tires mounted on the two rear wheels, and the right rear tire looked a little low in air pressure. I thought then that I should take it into the shop and have the rear tires replaced with new radials while I was in the meeting, but for some reason I forgot about it.

About half way through the meeting I recived a call from the Cheyenne Dispatcher who told me the Fremont County Sheriff's Office was in pursuit of a Chevrolet Corvette that was traveling west bound over South Pass towards my duty station in Farson, Wyoming and that they wanted me to intercept the vehicle at the T-intersection in Farson where the Highway 26 from South Pass interesected Highway 187. The vehicles the Deputies were driving were incapable of keeping up with the high powered Corvette, and they wanted me to stop him. I immediately entered my Patrol vehicle that was a high powered, very fast Ford 460 interceptor that had clocked 160 miles per hour on radar, and was capable of traveling 120 miles per hour all day long.

I was very confident that I would be able to make the intersection in Farson in time before it arrived there and be able to set up a road block to stop the vehicle. So I began my 47 mile trip north bound towards Farson soon traveling in excess of one hundred and thirty miles per hour, in my excitement to make it to the intersection, I completely forgot about the low rear tire that I had noticed earlier. About twenty miles into my trip and as I reached the top of 14 mile hill, the right rear tire blew out.

It is difficult to desribe the noise that was created by a steel belted tire exploding at high speed, it was deafening. I was immediately faced with controlling the vehicle that very easily might drag sideways towards the blown tire and cause the vehicle to roll at this high speed. Thankfully the vehicle held the road better than I expected and all I was able to do was ride out the storm and allow the vehicle to slow on it's own without applying the brakes. The vehicle drifted back and forth across both lanes of travel several times, but thankfully there was no traffic to be concerned about. Finally the vehicle rolled to a stop, but all I could do was sit in my seat and try to reduce my heart beat and my breathing, so that I could advise the dispatcher what had happened over the radio.

As I sat there suddenly a man appeared at my driver's side window and tapped on the glass. Still out of breath and unable yet to communicate well, I rolled the window down and all he said was, "Pop your trunk!" I pushed the trunk release button and unlocked the trunk. Two Wyoming Highway Department personnel had seen my vehicle when the tire blew shortly after I had passed them. They stopped behind me ready to assist. They pulled the jack out of the trunk along with the spare tire and in about five minutes I was ready to go. They told me that the shredded tire had destroyed the paint off of the car, as well as tearing all of the moulding off of the sides over the wheel wheel, and the steel rim on which the tire was mounted was destroyed, but other than that the vehicle looked driveable. (I later found that the tire also tore a chunk of steel out of the wheel well that was six inches wide and ten inches long.)

I quickly thanked them and resumed my high speed attempt to reach the intersection in Farson before the Corvette reached it. About five mile from my destination I saw a vehicle traveling south bound towards me and I began to track his speed as he approached me on my radar, at 107 mile per hour. I was traveling about 140 miles per hour which means our closing speed was approximately 247 miles hour. The driver of the vehicle that turned out to be the Corvette that I was attempting to intercept saw my overhead lights, he increased his speed and when he passed me going the opposite direction he was traveling 150 miles per hour. I was unable to make it in tme to the intersection, so now I would be forced to turn around and pursue the Corvette.

By the time I brought my vehicle's speed down enough to turn around and pursue the Corvette, he was already quickly moving out of my vision south of my location. While I turned and traveled in pursuit of the Corvette once again, I kept my Sergeant apprised of my situation and the situation with the Corvette. When I contacted the sergeant and told him how fast the Corvette was traveling, he and Patrolman Dave L. stopped their vehicles at a location several miles south of him, in a location that would allow the driver of the Corvette to see their patrol vehicles from a long distance away as he approached them, in the hopes that that the driver would stop without trying to run the road block.

They placed their vehicles in such a way on the roadway as to block both lanes of the roadway, denying the speeding vehicle access around them. If the driver of the Corvette didn't stop and chose to try to go around them, he would plummet he and his car off of the roadway and over a fifty foot cliff on each side of the roadway. I heard from the sergeant later who said that he positioned himself in front of his Patrol vehicle with a shotgun in his hands, and when the Corvette came over a rise and saw the two patrol cars blocking the roadway and the Sergeant standing there with the shotgun ready to use on him, he immediately slammed on his brakes.

The Corvette with it's high performance suspension went into a skid in the direction towards the road block, the vehicle completing five 360 degrees circular rotations for a distance of over three hundred feet, before sliding to a stop a few feet short of the two patrol car. I began to slow down far before I had too, not knowing exactly where the Patrolmen had set up the roadblock, and when they came into sight I could see that the suspect driving the vehicle was out of the vehicle and was fighting the Sergeant and the other Patrolman. After coming to a complete stop, I placed my vehicle in park, jumped out and assisted them in subduing the suspect.

While we were struggling with the suspect, unbeknownst to us the Corvette that was still in high gear, lost compression in the hot engine which released the wheels to turn, and gravity from the angle of the roadway caused the car to roll backwards and plunge over the fifty foot enbankment shattering the vehicle on the rock below. The vehicle was totally demolished. The reason he had run from the Deputies was because he had bought new tires for the car, and then had skipped without paying the bill; causing them to pursue him to this end.

In retrospect I am thankful that a merciful God perserved the life of this foolish young man, as well as the life of the man driving the Corvette, and the Sergeant and Patrolman Dave L.