An early Sunday morning car chase on the Sterling Highway ended with a crash and a burning vehicle off of the Kenai Spur Highway the trooper dispatch reports.

At 1:02 am troopers attempted to pull over a blue 2001 Dodge Neon near mile 93 of the Sterling Highway in the traffic safety corridor there. But, the suspect vehicle sped off at a high rate of speed in excess of 100 miles per hour, heading for the city of Soldotna.

Once within city limits, the Neon crossed into the on-coming lane and turned on to the Kenai Spur Highway and continued on to Marydale Lane. The vehicle continued driving erratically and at a high rate of speed down Marydale Lane, and attempted to turn off on to Diane Lane, but failed to do so, crashing into a Ford F-350 parked in a driveway at the end of Marydale. 

The F-3550 suffered significant front end damage, and was pushed into additional vehicles. The Dodge Neon also suffered severe front end damage and caught on fire on impact. The responding trooper was able to extinguish the flames with a fire extinguisher.

Central Emergency Services responded to the scene and extricated the two trapped occupants of the Neon, identified the driver as Lucas Lester, age 23 of Trapper Creek, and the passenger, Christopher Everly, 22 of Palmer.

The trooper dispatch reports that “Lester suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries. Everly suffered moderate injuries.” Both were transported to the Central Peninsula Hospital for treatment of their injuries.

The trooper investigation into the incident is continuing.

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  chase, christopher everly, crash, diane lane, fire, high speed, kenai spur, lucas lester, marydale avenue, sterling highway, troopers