Rockford is in aggregate one of the truly golden series in broadcast television. However the show was occasionally prone to overlong and absurd chase scenes. The chase between Jim in an underpowered Chevy Vega and a Mack cabover takes the cake as perhaps the worst in the entire series. Painfully long and utterly absurd. Unless Jim had suffered temporary amnesia all he had to do was move left or right stomp on the brakes and watch the Mack zoom past him. The Mack is by no means a nimble vehicle and even that Vega could out accelerate and out run it to say nothing of its ability to out maneuver the Mack. Instead we get an interminable scene with endless cuts between the same shots over and over. Worth watching only for the incompetent direction and scripting. A sure sign the script was a wee bit underwritten. Otherwise a decent episode in the development of a show on its way to becoming a classic. Notable mostly for the introduction of one of the best drawn characters in the show, Beth Davenport.
One sad note, this episode is one of countless films and tv shows seemingly hell-bent on ridding the planet of every Jaguar XKE in existence. Painful.