General Motors’ Executive Vice President of Global Product Development, Purchasing, and Supply Chain, Mark Reuss, crashed a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 on the parade lap of the second IndyCar race at the Detroit Grand Prix. The surreal incident led to a 27-minute delay and prompted the Internet to come down hard on Reuss. Fortunately, neither Reuss nor his passenger, IndyCar official Mark Sand, were hurt after the crash.

The crash occurred on the parade lap of the race after Reuss lost control of the Corvette ZR1 over the crest on the exit of Turn 2 of the Belle Isle race rack, crashing the sports car into the concrete retaining wall and forcing the field of 23 race cars to stop in their tracks.

As serious as the crash looked when it happened, Reuss and Sand escaped the incident without any physical injuries. "We are thankful that there were no serious injuries. Both the pace car driver and the series official were taken to the infield care center, where they were checked, cleared, and released," General Motors said in a statement. "It is unfortunate that this incident happened. Many factors contributed, including weather and track conditions. The car's safety systems performed as expected."

Unfortunately, the same probably can’t be said for Reuss’ psyche. The crash sent the Internet into overdrive as the GM exec immediately became the butt of a lot of jokes and snickers. His Wikipedia page, for example, was hacked where he earned a new job title as a “professional pace car crasher.” The snarky comment has since been deleted.

If there’s anything to be learned from this incident, it’s that Reuss may need to skip on any future invitations to drive a pace car on a parade lap. He’s good at his current job as a GM exec. He may not be as good as a parade car driver.

Further Reading

Read our full review on the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1

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