Being topographically challenged (for the most part), Oklahoma’s highways serve as a great staging ground to find out exactly what your tricked-out Mustang can do. A young man and his police escorts recently discovered this, and even the cops walked away impressed.
Angry, but impressed.
That, and it’s the horniest time of the year for our many venison-laden friends of the forest, which means impressive roadway acrobatics and unplanned feasts…after the break.
Okies and Octane
You can’t take the performance heritage out of a Ford Mustang, but you can impound one while its 19-year-old owner faces charges.
FOX affiliate KOKH reports that Hector Fraire was arrested on November 14 after being clocked at ever-increasing speeds on the Kilpatrick Turnpike in Oklahoma City.
The first Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer hit the lights and sirens after clocking Fraire’s 2011 Mustang at 84 miles per hour, but the youth wasn’t having any of that. Instead, he punched it, hoping to leave the officer in the dust. In an attempt to give the pursuing cruiser the slip, Fraire reportedly turned off his headlights and exited at the Northwest Expressway.
At that point, a second trooper nabbed the driver. During the earlier chase, Fraire’s Mustang reportedly hit 208 miles per hour, well above the takeoff speed of modern fighter jets. We don’t know what mods the suspect inflicted on his ‘Stang, but it’s safe to say its top-end performance wasn’t governor-limited.
“200 miles an hour … That is extremely fast,” OHP Capt. Paul Timmons said before, wait for it, warning drivers to avoid such behavior.
Nice Rack
Say you’ve just spent the day lugging your trusty bolt-action .30-06 through the woods of central New York with nothing to show for it. The height of rutting season, and yet that big buck never popped up in search of a hookup.
That’s what James Murphy of Fabius, NY experienced last Sunday, New York Upstate reports. However, driving home down Route 173 in Onondaga Country, Murphy’s truck managed to pull off what a soft-point partition bullet couldn’t. It bagged a 15-point buck.
“It was probably chasing a doe. Hit him square on. He went underneath my truck and trailer and died quickly,” he said.
Not wanting to let an opportunity pass by, Murphy quickly secured a tag for the animal, field-dressed it, then headed to the deer processing shop and taxidermist. The owner of G & B & Sons Deer Processing of East Syracuse declared it the biggest rack she’s seen in 38 years, while the taxidermist Bob Converse said it could be the biggest deer taken in the state this year.
We don’t know the make or model of Murphy’s truck, but he hit the world-class buck at 40 miles per hour and seemingly drove his own vehicle home. Like a rock, it was.
!['95-'97 Ford Windstar, Oak Vacation Resort Hotel, Image: By Bull-Doser (Own work.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/95-97_Ford_Windstar_Oak_Vacation_Resort_Hotel-610x344.jpg)
Windstar, Perforated
There’s not much you can do to prevent an incident of this type, besides staying home and watching hard-hitting and accurate political analysis on cable TV.
As WVLT reports, a Knoxville, Tennessee woman unexpectedly picked up a non-paying passenger in her Ford Windstar minivan as she drove to work. An airborne deer, no doubt propelled by insatiable lust, dove through the rear driver’s side window before realizing this wasn’t a great place to be.
It jumped right back out, and Wright got to work on time. Too bad for both the deer and the Windstar, which you just never hear of anymore, but this is what happens when humans and future stews can’t get along. As the video shows, the relationship is as acrimonious as that of local wildlife officers and Gillette razors.
Partly Cloudy, with a Chance of Meat
Keeping with the theme of large land animals winging through the air comes this story from Clarksville, Tennessee.
Now, this is unlucky, and you feel for the person involved. It’s the kind of accident that leaves “what if I had just…” thoughts rattling around in one’s mind for some time.
According to the Leaf-Chronicle, a vehicle driving along Clarksville’s Providence Boulevard Thursday evening encountered an antlered woods creature. Not an uncommon occurrence, for sure, but this impact had a very different outcome than most deer impacts.
“The deer flew off the car and hit a pedestrian,” stated Clarksville Police spokeswoman Officer Natalie Hall.
The incredibly unlucky pedestrian was treated in a local hospital for broken bones, but will have a hell of a story to tell for the rest of their life.
“This is not a type of crash that happens often,” Hall said, no doubt in that dry manner police spokespeople are famous for.
[Images: Ford Motor Company, USFWS Mountain-Prairie/Flickr (CC BY 2.0), State Farm/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)]
I’ve seen this one on other internet sites.
It takes some serious hp to run 200mph in a stock body Stang.
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/flat-out-we-gun-for-200-mph-in-the-2013-ford-mustang-shelby-gt500-feature-the-top-speed-189-mph-page-2
Too easy to make the kind of power that it takes to push a car that fast these days. Well not so much the fast part but getting there in a hurry part.
Per your link even the older 500 horsepower GT500s could top out in 5th IIRC at around 182-183 but it took a damn long time to get there.
I’m thinking if they no kidding clocked him at 208mph then either he had some downhill to help with the last 20-30mph or his engine puts out near a thousand hp. It’s one thing to top out over 200, it’s quite another to get to that fast. Oklahoma has a lot of wide open, long stretches of road, but still a car will eat up an amazing amount of real estate getting the last few mph.
As for it being too easy, yup I agree. You can shop 700hp crate engines for $20k or with some imagination and determination you can build one even more powerful. But–morality aside–why would you want to blow that much money just to end up in jail and lose the car?? This guy made this the focus of his life for probably the better part of a year, socking away money and spending it to build this car, and now for what?
I’m thinking… The kid lives in the 405. Unlikely as it seems, there might be something to it.
The bigger question is how did a 19 year old kid pay for the speed upcharge? He must have one helluva job. A rich daddy would have just bought him a lambo.
Meth.
I jest.
I jest.
If you refer to us as “living in the 405”, it’s pretty obvious your only knowledge of Oklahoma comes through an insipid reality show. We call it “OKC”.
That said, Edmond, just north of OKC, and right around where this kid was arrested, has plenty of wealthy neighborhoods. I would guess this kid’s money came from daddy’s oil services company, but those businesses are two years into tightening their belts to stay in business.
The ticket does sound bogus. If they’d said 160 or even 180 I’d believe it. 200? Your evidence needs to be better than his lawyer.
JimC2, OKC doesn’t have much downhill, but it can have a lot of tail wind. Easy to imagine the wind subtracting 20 mph from the air speed, lowering the horsepower requirement.
Gusts of 26 MPH on the day in question. And the wind was in his direction of travel.
You shouldn’t presume that I don’t know anything about OKC. I was born and raised in Oklahoma and have lived half my life there. My family lives in Oklahoma. I travel Oklahoma several times a week.
I put my post in a context others might relate to. The “405” has been made famous by a cable network show. That aside, Oklahoma is indeed home to some of the fastest street cars in the country, regardless of area code.
WhiskeyRiver, I apologize. I was being snarky because of how I believe that show mischaracterizes Oklahoma and racing.
Why is nobody calling BULLSHIT here?!? It’s a well known fact that some of these radar funs are completely inaccurate. I don’t care what this dude did to his stand. To get up to 208mph he would need ridonkulous hp. There is no indication that this is the case. I’m not defending running from the cops but seriously?!?208?!? That is just as ludicrous as these civil forfeiture cases.
“It takes some serious hp to run 200mph in a stock body Stang.”
And some serious balls to do so on a public highway. Not to mention, some serious lack of suitability for coexistence with others.
Maybe Mustang kid will plead down to “only” 100 over. Hehehe
Deer are kinda like dogs- crazy ones at that.
Mustang kid may never legally drive again but maybe that’s the price to pay of being a legend.
Deer – not like dogs but more like large rats with antlers that are protected by the state.
The kid controlled a car at 208 MPH? I blame Joe Biden. He had to brag about going 160, and look what happens?
The kid has a future in racing, but first he has to realize you can’t beat the radio. Or the police helicopter with night vision video. Or the nail strips.
Well I guess he beat the 146 MPH kid in the Neon from Maine. Impressive, but incredibly stupid too.
Hmm. I frequently take the Kilpatrick Turnpike, which borders the western edge of the city, then wraps around and separates the north part of the city from the north-north part, where it blurs with Edmond (where I live), then merges into I-44 to lead onto Tulsa.
Good thing I wasn’t around.
“Good thing I wasn’t around.”
Would you have ran him for slips?
If I did, I would be minus one VW TDI.
Nah, I just wouldn’t want to be a casualty because of someone else’s recklessness.
As a fellow TDI owner I can sympathize with you!
The strong suit of the TDI is you could pass him back on the big end…as long as the big end was a few hundred miles down the line.
Well, I’ve been in Oklahoma; I’ve also been on the Santa Monica pier. I’m betting that pretty blue Mustang in in California, not Oklahoma.
Well I’ve never been to heaven…
But I’ve been to Oklahoma.
This made me check to see if there are palm trees in OK. Yuck, there are.
No way that street driven 2011 Mustang hit 208 mph with him driving…Unless, it had wind tunnel proven aero pieces that would help it slice through the air with any degree of stability. Anyone who has driven a street car 160 or so will tell you that at those speeds, stability is the issue. I have no doubt the car might have gone 200 MPH given enough mods to get the hp and torque rating nearly double the factory rating, but without major suspension and aerodynamic body mods, it ain’t going to happen.
I read another account of this incident, and he was first clocked at 84, then 168, and the final 208. I have to think if they were using radar or other measurable means to clock it there is a possibility that someone was looking at the KPH reading, or had accidentally flipped the switch that changed it from MPH to KPH…
I just read up on the latest Michigan State Police police car test results for 2017. Their results showed the Chevy Caprice V8 police package ran a top speed of 155 mph on Chrysler’s Chelsea proving grounds during the 14 mile driving test. The Dodge Challenger 5.7 AWD police pkg came in at 150 MPH…Those were the two fastest cars offered for 2017. The Ford AWD 3.5 turbo came in at 144 as I recall. Point being, most of the police cars could not clock a car going that fast on the highway, but they could use radar. Modern radar will add the difference in speed between the pursuit car and the car being chased if that chased car is going faster than the police car. It will also subtract the closing speed difference. My radar units back in the day would not clock anything above 200 MPH, which is why I tend to think someone was looking at the KPH readout…
Um, clocking is using radar; pacing is when you drive as fast as the bad guy. I think we’re using the term “clock” to mean different things- not that I have a lock on the English language.
That’s a fair point about km/h.
208 kph would be 130 mph. That sounds more reasonable.
600 crank HP will get you 200 mph in that car. But it will get you there slowly. Build a car with 700 wheel HP, which isn’t hard these days, and hit a shot of nitrous and you might get there pretty damn quick. I won’t argue that it would be as stable as a Ferrari at that speed, but it can be done. That said, I suspect the cops are bullsh!tting on this one.
This. The engine may have been capable of 200mph+, but without serious suspension and body mods, I don’t think he would have survived it….certainly not on public roads.
Didn’t have a problem at 172 in my car, same chassis. Car shot right down yet road with no issue at all.
The condition of the road has a lot to do with it. On the stretch of road I used to burn the carbon out so to speak was fairly smooth with minor imperfections in the surface. Conversely when I was messing around on a different road I had to brake at a much lower speed ( around 140 at that time ) and hit a dip in the road and,the car became completely flustered.
My buddy trailing me thought I was going to flip the car but fortunately I still had space and simply let off the brakes. Straightened the car out and finished my deceleration.
The John Kilpatrick Turnpike is a wide flat road near the outer edge of Oklahoma City. It’s a mile south of my sister’s house so I drive on it fairly frequently. I suspect that the police measured a speed of 208 kph = 129 mph. Oklahoma City gets some rather impressive wind so it’s also possible that the air speed of the Mustang was significantly lower than the measured ground speed.
Looking at the weather for Oklahoma City on the day in question, the wind was gusting westward up to 26 MPH. If he had the wind at his back (and looking at maps of the highways in question, it seems probable that he did), 208 would be totally achievable.
Disagreed on the stability issues. I guess it may depend upon the car in question, but I’ve driven two different modern cars in excess of 160 and haven’t had any stability issues at all. The were both stock body cars with no extra aero of any kind.
I suspect the cops are saying 208 only so that they can throw the book at the kid. Lucky he wasn’t black, they’d have filled him with holes.
“Lucky he wasn’t black, they’d have filled him with holes.”
This has to be the most widely repeated baseless and ignorant statement I hear lately.
Way to needlessly spread hate and negativity for absolutely no reason.
Racism at its finest right there.
Baseless, no. It’s clear that cops are more likely to shoot a black man than a white man in an arrest, or even just in a tense situation.
“Baseless, no. It’s clear that cops are more likely to shoot a black man than a white man in an arrest, or even just in a tense situation.”
I’m pretty sure this isn’t the direction this conversation wants to go, so I’ll just say that it is baseless in the context of this story.
Statistics have proven otherwise.
You guys…. maybe it’s just that with everybody all hunched in their hoodies the poor cops don’t know *what* they’re shooting until they go to tag it.
How do we know the kid’s race?
“How do we know the kid’s race?”
Well, “Hector” is a pretty dead giveaway that it’s a rotten rich-kid WASP.
Deer + American truck = Bambi Tacos ! .
Mmmmmmmmm =8-) .
-Nate
What gearing did the ’11 Mustang come with? I remember my ’91 5.0 LX with the 2.73 gears would have hit 240mph at 6,000 in OD (downhill in a hurricane). I think the new ones have a 6th gear, but would it survive with the tall gears and the kind of power needed to hit 208?
MT82 Gear ratios
1st – 3.66
2nd – 2.43
3rd – 1.69
4th – 1.32
5th – 1.00
6th – 0.65
Final Drive could be any number of ratios from a 3.15 (IIRC) to a 3.31 to a 3.73
http://www.dragtimes.com/2011-Ford-Mustang-gear-ratios-top-speed-64.html?tire_width=255&tire_aspect=45&wheel_diam=18&tire_diam=27.03&axle_ratio=3.730&redline=7100&gear1=4.171&gear2=2.340&gear3=1.521&gear4=1.143&gear5=0.867&gear6=0.691&gear7=0.000&gear8=0.000&calc_button=Calculate
play with it as you will but even with the 3.73’s in 6th at 7000 rpm the car would be capable of 218 mph (IIRC the kid had four digit power numbers.
If the kid had the 3.15 final drive the car could pull 206 in 5th gear provided he was just using a power adder but considering the kind of power he was supposedly making its a safe bet he was probably running something akin to the Boss engine or perhaps better when it comes to the valve train so 8,000 or so RPM wouldn’t be out of the picture.
So gusts of up to 26 mph will give an extra 40ish mph in top speed. I need to remember this urban myth.
Not just fast but “insanely” fast.