(Photos: Maine State Patrol) The Dodge Neon SRT-4 didn’t have a lot going for it, to be honest. It was based on the cheeky, cheerful and effin’ cheap Neon and to be fair, if you deduct the running gear, that alone is a reason to not own one, ever. But if you don’t beat on it like a cheap rental and manage to keep the transaxle in one piece, the SRT-4 is a surprising little beast of a car that has some serious chops. I doubted every claim until I drove a friend’s “LIL VIPER” years ago…the little monster would scoot if you gave it some decent pedal! Funny thing about remembering Wayne’s old SRT-4…at the time he owned that car, there were a group of us who all knew the top end of our cars. Everybody knew where they were willing to drive: the electronic limiter in my 2001 Regal GS kicked in at 110 miles an hour on the dot with a not-so-subtle fuel cut-off. The 2002 Corvette Z51 was proven to hit 174 miles an hour during a very illicit run, and as for the TDI Jetta…well, just do the best you can, little fella. But the SRT-4 never put up a top speed run.

Well, an 18-year-old in Maine just got a radar-indicated 146 top-speed run in his Dodge on Interstate 95. And no, there is no event that shuts down I-95. The driver, Tyler Barrows, was busted at more than double over the 70 mile per hour limit by Maine State Patrol. On the plus side…impressive speed. On the downside…well, just about everything else. 140-plus miles an hour in the middle of broad daylight on an Interstate? We hope that when the judge throws the book at you, that the aim is dead-on and you get drilled in the forehead.

Per the Maine State Police’s Instagram page:

A speeder is facing several charges after being clocked at 146 miles per hour on the interstate earlier today. On Sept. 28, Lt. Bruce Scott was on patrol when dispatched radioed asking if there were any available units on the interstate north of mile marker 130. Lt. Scott, who was near mile marker 150 in Pittsfield, indicated he was. Dispatch informed him that there was a “blue sports car” travelling at a high rate of speed heading north at Mile Marker 135. Lt. Scott asked about the delay in time, and was indicated that the delay was approximately 3 minutes from the time the call was placed. Normally, a car travelling the speed limit would travel to Lt. Scott’s position in approximately 12 minutes. Two minutes later, Lt. Scott saw a blue Dodge Neon travelling at a high rate of speed in his location. He locked it in on his radar at travelling at 146 miles per hour in a 70 mile per hour zone.
Lt. Scott stopped the vehicle and spoke with the driver, Tyler Barrows, 18, of Manchester, Maine. Barrows was arrested and summonsed for criminal speed (class E), failure to provide proof of insurance and failure to provide proof of inspection.
Lt. Scott, who heads up the Traffic Safety Division for the Maine State Police noted that in his entire career in law enforcement, he had never clocked someone travelling at such a high rate of speed.