Photo : Chevrolet

Two General Motors employees were taken to jail earlier this week after the Kentucky State Police busted them for allegedly street racing C8 Corvette test vehicles. The incident involving two company-owned Corvettes that you can’t even buy yet took place this past Wednesday in Bowling Green, Kentucky, home to the Corvette manufacturing plant.




According to a report by Automobile, Alexander Thim and Mark Derkatz were arrested for reckless driving, racing motor vehicles on public roads, and exceeding the 45 mph speed limit by traveling at least 71 mph. It’s unknown how fast the cars were going, only that it was at least 26 mph above the speed limit which is the threshold for a court hearing and a possible license suspension in Kentucky.

According to their LinkedIn profiles, Thim is an analysis engineer and Derkatz is an electrical engineer. Their current employment status is unknown, but my money is on hella fired. The Corvettes were towed away and picked up the following day by “the owner,” which I’m guessing was a very annoyed fleet manager.


In a statement to Automobile, GM said, “We are aware of an incident involving our test vehicles and are currently investigating,” adding, “Safety remains our overriding priority at General Motors. We have no further comment at this time.”

Engineers are purportedly smart people, but I’ll be the first to admit we can be a bit dense sometimes. This, however, appears to be some next-level stupidity. Remember kids: If you street race, you are dumb and bad. If you do it in a company test vehicle, you are preposterously irresponsible, and probably unemployed.