1983 St. Louis County jailhouse interview with “Turbo” Ted Van Brunt
Interviewer: Tell me about your escape from Duluth.
Turbo Ted: Escaping Duluth is a coin flip. Half my friends tried and couldn’t reach the velocity, came back after two or three years of getting kicked around out there. I tried a couple times.
What you’re really asking about started a couple springs ago, when it rained then the temperature plunged. The city woke up with a coating of clear ice on every surface. Branches falling in the road. Whole city shut down, nothing could move.
Except my black, street stock, ice racing stud car, a 1976 Chevette with a roll cage and 500 spikes on each tire — sheet metal screws we screwed in ourselves. Fender all chewed up. Commonly called the worst car of all time but it did everything we asked. And Johnny said it was go time. He was the brains, had it all worked, how to disarm the system at the Superior Street jewelers there. He got that with a bribe. It was only a question of when, and this was our crisis of opportunity. “The cops won’t stand a chance,” he said, and they didn’t. They even had chains on but they still didn’t know how to drive. Anyway so Johnny robbed it, but he didn’t get all the alarms. And I was the getaway driver but I still get half. Which wasn’t much — a couple display cases worth of diamond jewelry. Pulled him behind the car on a tether as we blew down Superior through deserted intersections, cross-training for frozen lake ice races at the same time we’re robbing a jewelry store. Just on his feet — no skis, just boots. And of course the cop shop is right there. But their interceptors fell behind. It was beautiful. …
