Where to begin? We had 409. Little Douce Coup. Little Old Lady from Pasadena. Fun, Fun, Fun. GTO. Shut Down. The Theme from Route 66 (still a pretty good piece of instrumental music; I'm glad they never added any cornball lyrics about two guys tootlin' around the country in a Corvette to it). Dead Man's Curve.
It's the final two on the list that I'll thematically combine in a little career-damager (if not killer) of a story on two GM engineer who just couldn't help themselves when it came to testdriving the 2020 Corvette Stingray.
Ah, the Stingray. The ultimate fantasy car of teen automative life of my girlhood. At least I imagined it was. Personally, I didn't have car fantasies, although at 12, I did have a crush on George Maharis, one of the two fellows tootlin' around the country in a Corvette.
Ah, the Stingray. The ultimate fantasy car of teen automative life of my girlhood. At least I imagined it was. Personally, I didn't have car fantasies, although at 12, I did have a crush on George Maharis, one of the two fellows tootlin' around the country in a Corvette.
Anyway, Engineers Alexander Thim and Mark Derkatz took the newest Corvette out for a spin last week in Bowling Green, Kentucky, home of the GM plant where Corvettes are built. They both ended up under arrest.
Thim was driving a red Corvette that reached a speed of 120 mph, according to the citation. Derkatz was in a white Corvette that was clocked at 100 mph.
The posted speed on the road was 45 mph.
They were charged with reckless driving, racing on a public highway and driving more than 26 mph faster than the posted speed limit. (Source: CNN)
GM was pretty tight-lipped about the incident. "Aware... ...safety ...priority ...no further comment."
But I looked up the lead-footed fellows on LinkedIn, and Thim is "currently looking for an engineering job...Previously worked at General Motors launching the 2020 Corvette." Derkatz's listing still has him as a part of the "Corvette Electrical Launch Team", focusing on "issue resoluton." Perhaps Derkatz was able to resolve his career error issue because he was only going 100 m.p.h., while Thim was clocked at 120. But more likely, he's been bounced, too, and just hasn't updated his LinkedIn profile quite yet. [Note: after I wrote this post, I checked back and saw that Derkatz has updated his LinkedIn profile and resume to reflect that his tenure at GM ended in January 2020.]
There was more info from the local media, which reported that the incident took place at 11:20 p.m. on Lovers Lane, and Krim and Derkatz admitted that they'd just come from an establishment called Cue Time Cocktails and Billiards. And they both had booze breath. (The citation doesn't say they were DUI-ing. Just that they'd been drinking.)
What were they thinking? Sure, even though these guys aren't from my age cohort, I'm sure it was ultra-exciting to get behind the wheel of a 'vette. And once they got there, just couldn't resist putting the pedal to the metal.
But taking the company car out for a spin like this? Yikes. Talk about a colossal error in judgment. I hope for their sake that at least they had permission to be sporting around in those 'vettes. If they wanted to drive that fast, they should have done it at an off-the-road facility. Of course, since they're not test drivers, they might not have been allowed to whip around that fast in a car that retails for $60K.
Both of these guys are young (Thim 27, Derkatz 30), so there's plenty of time for their careers to bounce back from this lap around the Bowling Green version of Dead Man's Curve. Maybe some day, this will be yet another 'things that happened at work/things that happened when I was young and stupid' to tell over a couple of beers at a backyard cookout. But still... What a couple of bone-heads.
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And here, for your listening pleasure, the Theme from Route 66.
But I looked up the lead-footed fellows on LinkedIn, and Thim is "currently looking for an engineering job...Previously worked at General Motors launching the 2020 Corvette." Derkatz's listing still has him as a part of the "Corvette Electrical Launch Team", focusing on "issue resoluton." Perhaps Derkatz was able to resolve his career error issue because he was only going 100 m.p.h., while Thim was clocked at 120. But more likely, he's been bounced, too, and just hasn't updated his LinkedIn profile quite yet. [Note: after I wrote this post, I checked back and saw that Derkatz has updated his LinkedIn profile and resume to reflect that his tenure at GM ended in January 2020.]
There was more info from the local media, which reported that the incident took place at 11:20 p.m. on Lovers Lane, and Krim and Derkatz admitted that they'd just come from an establishment called Cue Time Cocktails and Billiards. And they both had booze breath. (The citation doesn't say they were DUI-ing. Just that they'd been drinking.)
What were they thinking? Sure, even though these guys aren't from my age cohort, I'm sure it was ultra-exciting to get behind the wheel of a 'vette. And once they got there, just couldn't resist putting the pedal to the metal.
But taking the company car out for a spin like this? Yikes. Talk about a colossal error in judgment. I hope for their sake that at least they had permission to be sporting around in those 'vettes. If they wanted to drive that fast, they should have done it at an off-the-road facility. Of course, since they're not test drivers, they might not have been allowed to whip around that fast in a car that retails for $60K.
Both of these guys are young (Thim 27, Derkatz 30), so there's plenty of time for their careers to bounce back from this lap around the Bowling Green version of Dead Man's Curve. Maybe some day, this will be yet another 'things that happened at work/things that happened when I was young and stupid' to tell over a couple of beers at a backyard cookout. But still... What a couple of bone-heads.
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And here, for your listening pleasure, the Theme from Route 66.
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