Dear Speed Channel...

You lost a lot of us when you became the 24-hour NASCAR Channel, but you can win us back by broadcasting this:

...you're given the set of keys to a brand new car, and best of all, all you have to do to get it is to drive it away ...

[...]

...It seems you just signed up to be on The Intercept, a hugely popular Russian game show. Your goal now is to evade the police for 35 minutes while speeding through crowded streets and down narrow tunnels. That's right; they basically invented a live action Grand Theft Auto game.

As if things weren't bad enough, each car is equipped with a high energy transmitter so the contestants can be tracked at all times by the police. Reportedly only a handful of people have ever won a car, and those participants only barely made it. One man ended up hiding the stolen vehicle in a boxcar (we like to think the guy had to ramp the car up onto the train while it was moving), and another drove the car onto a sturdy raft and floated it out into the middle of a lake. We're beginning to think it would just be easier for these people to steal cars the old fashioned way.

While you may think that these contestants merely lose the car if caught, it gets worse. The police are allowed to beat the participants upon interception, so almost every show ends with the wannabe criminal face down on the asphalt while a crowd of law enforcement officers kick him in the ribs.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at January 11, 2008 03:57 PM