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Chaser destroys rental car in hail storm
- Thread starter Warren Faidley
- Start date
Mark Gressman Jr
SupporterI'm with ya @James K .... as a car guy, that's hard to watch, lol. Damage is gonna happen from time to time, but my biggest issue as I mentioned before, is the fact that he's doing it on purpose in a rental. I'm curious as to why he isn't using the dominator... Isn't that the kind of thing they were specifically built for? I guess it helps the "likes" to flagrantly destroy someone else's stuff. It's just disappointing since my best chance to chase from the east coast is to fly out and rent. Maybe Sean's right though, this stuff has been going on for a while and has yet to become a major hinderance. Time will tell I guess.
Tony Laubach
EF5
I feel like I ought chime in as I'm now in the "old man in the group" club who has been there, done that...
Many will remember my 2006 incident in Texas where I destroyed a rental in a hailstorm while enroute to my father's wedding. Now while I certainly had ZERO intention to do that, I ended up detouring on my trip down to scope out a supercell near Seymour which ultimately rained down baseballs and took out most of the windows in the car.
Now I had rented the car to make the Denver-to-Midland drive as my personal vehicle at the time was in the shop and was not suitable for a lengthy road trip before the repairs. I had packed limited gear in case a chase happened, but did not leave with the intention to chase. Of course, I ended up doing so, and with very limited reliable data, did not do a good job navigating around the storm, and thus the car met her fate.
Where I went wrong (looking back as older Tony to younger Tony) was glorifying that incident. Now 2006 was certainly a much different time, and clicks and engagement of social media was not yet a thing, so for me, it was all in the name of a couple video sales (two, if I am not mistaken) and some bragging rights within chaser circles.
Now, I did take some heat as several chasers thought I had malicious intent despite my several years of willingness to destroy my own cars in hail, and one went so far as to call me in to the rental car company to tattle on me for intentionally destroying their car. The company did reach out to inquire about my rental intentions, and when I told them the primary reason I was renting, all they asked is that I provided some proof of the wedding, to which I immediately did, and never again heard anything about it.
It's been nearly 20 years since then (Jeezus Crackers, wtf)... and I have on multiple occasions taken rental cars into the field to cover storms, most recently last May when my car was getting her new transmission. I went to great lengths to keep her out of damaging storm hazards, and even got to enjoy an awesome hailstorm from the cover a car wash in Kansas. My younger self, while definitely not with the intent to wreck the car, certainly could've done better on the backside of that situation. But even now, I can say with total honesty that I have never intentionally, nor have I tried, to wreck out a car that was not one of my own, and I stand by that to this day as my chasing rental car record remains spotless, with not so much as a dent to speak of to this point (I have now jinxed the ever-loving crap out of myself).
Now like many on this thread, I do not know of this specific incident, nor am I going to go to any lengths to find out whom, because I imagine this is probably more common than we actually see. Some folks probably go to great lengths to avoid glamorizing what they're doing to rentals (intentionally or otherwise), and there are a few yougnins that don't care, and are taking the chance to get those clicks, donations, fast bucks, whatever, and hope that their actions go unpunished.
Honestly, this isn't anything new. The end result, a rental that's destroyed due to chasing, regardless of intent, has happened on countless occasions across dozens, if not hundreds of chasers. When certain chasers are more visible in the public eye have done it, some quite obviously so, and there hasn't seeminly been any repercussions, my guess is that a vast majority of these cases are closed up with no action toward the chaser at hand as the car is probably written off and it would cost them more money to try and get anything out of the chaser than it would be to insure loss the car and get a new one). I suppose a few have been black-balled, but with plenty of rental companies around, it's hard to imagine someone attaining enough destruction to lose the ability to rent a car via any company. But if chasing hasn't been specifically outlawed by rental companies by this point, I can't imagine that anything big is going to change.
So my HOPE is the idea of renting a car to total it out in a storm for clicks, views, money, fame, whatever, is a very VERY limited one. But to those who have that idea crawling around in their one-braincell noggin, don't be stupid, stupid. I have a hard time believing in karma sometimes, but I hope those that have those intentions do get their just desserts.
While I can't really call myself a car guy, Its hard to watch one damaged like that....especially purposely done.
And yeah its one thing if you do it to your own vehicle, but quite another if its not yours!
He said something in tonight's stream about the dominator being in for repairs (I'm guessing he was driving another rental for this chase - not much of a storm from the part I watched - so no damage) .. so maybe it was in the shop then too.
Jesse Risley
Staff memberIs there a link to the video and/or the Reddit thread referenced? I honestly have no clue what incident this discussion refers to. I have not even seen anything on X the past week about it.Matt Zumbrunn
EF2
Dominator hit a deer. Can take tornadoes but a TX panhandle deer took out the radiator. Then he blew either the engine or transmission on his Subaru at Silverton.
Diane Bianchi
EF0
And what is also mystifying is that while I have read the whole thread, not one person has identified or called out the person who did this by name. I have read different threads over the years of calling out by name chasers who have acted recklessly or dangerously, but not this one. Is he being protected by those of you who appear to be outraged? It is only within the last one or two threads I myself could, I think, put a name to the perpetrator, but if you're sincerely outraged, why not call him out, to hopefully put an end to this behavior across the chaser community, and protect the reputation of good chasers?
I'm not trying to be snarky, but I guess just a little confused by the secrecy here.
Mark Gressman Jr
SupporterNo secret as far as I can tell, I just figured everyone would already assume who does that kinda thing by his past actions, lol. I'm not outraged at all because it's nothing new, and calling him out isn't going to do anything that hasn't already been done for over the past decade, which is nothing, lol. It is what it is at this point.
Edit.... For what it's worth, I don't have anything against him, he's an excellent chaser, and he doesn't owe me or anyone else anything.... but being high profile comes with a certain level of responsibility. If he did this in his personal vehicle, I'd say good show and that he's a mad lad.... but it's not his, and he's showing it off to the world which I find in bad taste.Last edited:
Sean Ramsey
EF4
If one wants to understand why someone does something like that, this threads existence should answer that very question.
It gets people talking.
It gets views.
It makes money.
And I don't think anyone will deny there's plenty of adrenaline rush to go along with it.
Money is the driver of everything. Social media views = Social Media follows. Follows = Clout/Fame. Clout/Fame converts to cash. Cash = More chasing (less need for a job). Lots of cash = full time chasing. This is not an unknown formula.
Even the most famous chaser of them all needs an income and this is how you do it.
The tactics to get there will always be questionable. But those questions are what helps and keeps them at their end goal.
JamesCaruso
Staff memberAgree with Diane, surprised nobody mentioned who this was, I got the distinct impression it was some anonymous chaser. Thought this stupidity by such a high-profile chaser would be the main topic, as opposed to the more generic issue of risking hail when chasing in a rental car….
Just unbelievably stupid and moronic. The screaming and yelling is par for the course, but risking glass in the eye and putting it on camera, “Got shards of glass in my face!” This just further hurts the image of chasers. Before it was just the general screaming that bothered me, but this is a whole new level in my opinion.
This forum makes zero net money. It survives almost exclusively on donations, minimal ad revenue, and is paid for out of pocket by me, the owner. This thread is part of a website/forum that is built to discuss events like this and other things. I highly doubt that Reed Timmer was motivated to destroy a car with hail so that it could be discussed on Stormtrack. So this thread does not prove why anyone would engage in this behavior.Mike Smith
EF5
I don't know if this is at all helpful but here goes....
I retired in 2018. Until then I was a member of Hertz's "President's Circle" which means you have to do 40 or more rentals (not rental days) in a year, The reason I was loyal to Hertz was that they didn't have extra fees for second drivers, they didn't care where you drove the car, and their one-way rentals were often more reasonable than the others (probably a function of their size). Our travel costs were subject to audit and never once did AW's accounting people complain about my rental car costs (of course, it was corporate that was sending me criss-crossing the country constantly).
I bring this up because I have been told, "Hertz is too expensive." Perhaps they are and things have changed in the past six years (I've only rented one car since I retired). But, in many cases, Hertz was like $2/day more expensive than Avis and $5/day than Dollar and Thrifty when you added the others' ancillary costs. My time was certainly worth more than $2/day by walking straight to the car, driving away and not dealing with the mickey mouse and lines at the counters.
If you chase as a business, any extra incremental cost can be deducted. Might be something worth considering.
Jason N
EF4
I don't think this thread has to prove he deliberately wanted to destroy a rental or not, his own trademark of severe extreme chases does that for him. But the idea of extreme chasing, leading to more views and more content leading to more money is his model and it's worked for him well. That's not condoning it, its just what he does, and maybe he thinks that popularity will remove responsibility? I dont know
Jason N
EF4
I've noticed that myself about Hertz Vs. Avis and dollar, but at the same time they are in competition but hasn't hertz been around a lot longer than the others? I know Alamo and Avis have been around to, but I kind of thought that Hertz was the first or biggest, and maybe there is something to that about that, they can charge more, because they offer more, and have the luxury of being like Space X of rentals? "first".. I don't know for sure about that. Just a guess.Mike Smith
EF5
Yes, I believe Hertz was the first national rental car company and they built their empire with creative advertising in the 60's and 70's (the second commercial has O.J. running through an airport).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1o5EtxBsHc This is one of a classic series of commercials, "Hertz puts you in the driver's seat."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0MIUrrNpc O.J. Simpson running through an airport.
My point is that, while their customer service can be inconsistent from airport to airport, they've done a really good job (or, had up to 2018) of getting a lot of the stupidity out of renting a car.
My last experience with Dollar (Hertz was out of cars and couldn't take a reservation) was that they kept me waiting for three hours at DEN, even though I had a reservation, for a car and I didn't leave the airport until 2am. Had to drive to BOU and didn't get to bed until 3:30am for an 8am meeting.
