Throwing BRICs

I always dread Mon­days. How is it that in the two short days that you and everyone else is out of the office so many things can go to hell in a handbasket? And so it was that on Monday, July 18, I stumbled into the office and fired up my computer, ostensibly to sift through the 400-plus e-mails that I’d received over the weekend for everything from penal enlargement to how I can make $1 million by letting some African nation transfer money through my savings account (hmm, must be my lucky day!)

However, on this day—instead of a deluge of Viagra offers—I soon found a stream of e-mails from people as far away as Australia asking me what had happened at Road America’s Brian Redman International Challenge the day before. It wasn’t until I had sifted through a few of these inquiries that I found a message from a prominent West Coast restorer pointing me to VRJ photographer Dick Carlson’s Web site (www.pbase.com/atrltd/image). It was there that I saw a series of photographs from what has to be, in my estimation, the worst multi-car pile up I have ever seen or heard about at a historic race meeting. No less than 17 cars were involved in a start-of-the-race accident that sent several people to the hospital (though thankfully, none seriously injured) and which completely destroyed most of the cars involved, including a Cobra and enough Corvettes to start a Chevy dealership.