It's like footage out of a Hollywood movie - a stolen high powered sports car tearing through the streets of Newcastle, overtaking on double lines, smashing into gutters and finally being recovered by police.
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The wild dashcam recording taken from inside a stolen Audi R8 has gone viral on social media following the arrest of a man over the incident.
It started when the keys to the expensive sports car were stolen from inside a Merewether home and the car driven from the garage, triggering the dashcam to turn on and capture what a senior police boss described as one of the worst examples of dangerous driving he's seen.
The car runs through stop signs, reaches 160km/h in a 60km/h zone and overtakes multiple cars at a time on double lines.
LANGUAGE WARNING
The owner of the Audi, Luke, who only had the prized car for three months, was left heartbroken after seeing the footage of his "baby" being damaged and driven erratically. To give an idea of how valuable this car is, Luke is looking at about $165,000 for a replacement.
It was certainly a rollercoaster of emotions for Luke, who actually managed to track down the luxury car himself after coming home to see it had been stolen.
"I went into problem solve mode," he said. "I remembered it only had $20 worth of petrol in it. Once we realised I said let's go to the service stations, show them pictures of the car."
The rare vehicle had been spotted in Lake Macquarie, and Luke managed to find and follow a line on the road that had been left by the car.
"There was a trail of breadcrumbs," he said. "We followed the line through the streets, and saw it go up a driveway behind gates.
"I called the police - I hadn't visually seen the car but I said it's got to be there. The police race up, they very quickly grabbed a man and handcuffed him.
"I'm asking police 'is there a car?', but they said 'we cant tell you anything'. "A neighbour said come down the back here and we looked over fence and there it was. It was so insane - this all happened inside two and a half hours.
Initially Luke thought the car had just suffered minor damage ... but then he saw the dashcam footage.
The R8 had smashed gutters at 70km/h, the clutch had been overheated, the ceramic brakes had been hit hard, and there was further extensive damage. The car had been well modified and was more valuable than a standard model.
"We're just going to write the car off," Luke said. 'We don't want it back, all of Australia knows it's been horribly abused, so no one would buy it from us.
"The car had been so babied. It was never driven in the rain. We have ramps at front of house just to be careful of little tiny gap in the lip."
But Luke said he felt lucky the previous owner had installed the high-tech dashcam system and said he didn't want people on social media to show aggression towards the alleged offender, Darren Paul Johns.
Mr Johns, 49, remains behind bars after he was charged with take and drive conveyance without consent of owner, drive recklessly/furiously or speed/manner dangerous, drive whilst unlicensed and break and enter house steal value more than $60,000.
"People are stoning this guy, but he's paying his price," Luke said.
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In the news
Sage Swinton
Sage Swinton is a news reporter who was born and bred in the Hunter. She has been with the Newcastle Herald since June 2020, and covers Newcastle council as well as other general news.
Sage Swinton is a news reporter who was born and bred in the Hunter. She has been with the Newcastle Herald since June 2020, and covers Newcastle council as well as other general news.
