Remember self-described social media evangelist Philip Odegard's claimed 210+ MPH Bugatti Veyron ticket? The California Highway Patrol now claims he made it up. But not before our story ended up on last night's episode of Top Gear.
That's right, our story on Philip Odegard's little faux speeding escapade made it on to last night's what we read on the blogs news segment of the world's greatest motoring show, Top Gear. And they did about the same amount of fact-checking we did on it. Actually, we think we may have done a bit more. We at least tweeted about it to Philip Odegard — however, it was to no avail as he didn't answer.
But, here's what the OCRegister has to say about the story after doing a bit of digging around:
"The question was raised earlier this week by Jalopnik.com, a site for car lovers, after this image of a speeding ticket was reportedly posted on the Web by someone named Philip Robert Odegard.
The partially obscured image purports to show that Odegard, 22, a self-described technology evangelist and entrepreneur, was caught driving a $1.4 million Bugatti at "210+" mph in the early hours of July 1.
But a call to the California Highway Patrol reveals the image is a fake.
In fact, Odegard was ticketed on April 1 for traveling 100 mph at the same location on the toll road, according to CHP officer Chris Goodwin.
Odegard was driving a 2004 Infiniti, not a 2008 Bugatti, Goodwin said."
What? A 2004 Infiniti? Really? You know, we should have known better. Those silly, self-described social media experts — you never can trust them, can you? But, when even Top Gear gets played, we don't feel like we're in the worst company.
Kudos to the OC Register for, you know, doing the journalist thing and calling up the CHPs to ask. That's our Top Gear "top tip" of the day today! (Hat tip to Sean!) [OC Register]