There’s not much to go on beyond this dash video by Ken Brewer, but suffice it to say that someone wasn’t having a good day when this all happened. The course at Road Atlanta was certainly meant for drivers. Technical turns and elevation changes make it more of a test for both driver and machine, but in this case, it was short and not-so sweet.

The video starts coming out of Turn 7. The camera car gets passed going into Turn 8 by the Corvette, who then probably nails it into the long straight up to Turn 9. He didn’t make it far, just getting to the Mazda bridge when it all starts going pear-shaped. Those are the vagaries of high performance driving. Still, it’s tough to see a nice piece of machinery go into self destruct mode.

There is a lesson to be learned here… it’s always better to use your buddy’s car. Whatever happens at the track, you’ve always got a ride home. Still, the almost universal reaction to this video has been “Why didn’t the driver stop to check on the other one?” It doesn’t look like this was anything more than a lapping day or open session. I could be wrong, though.

It certainly would have happened in the early days of automotive competition – as it was explained to me – when racing was dangerous and sex was safe. Seems like that was some time ago now.

Corvette Engine Explosion from Road Atlanta from Ken Brewer on Vimeo.