Here is one of every racers’ worst nightmares. An ex-pat C6 Z06 loses a wheel during “Tourist Days” at Germany’s Nürburgring race track and luckily no one got hurt.

A video cam from the car following the Vette, a black SUV and an old school Opel Kaddett captures the action. The C6 driver doesn’t appear to do anything crazy but when he passes the Opel, all of a sudden, we see a hint of tire smoke and then you see the haunches of the Z06 buckle up as it runs over its own rear tire. Ouch.

The Opel goes into avoidance mode and somehow avoids the spinning Z06 which may or may not have kissed the guardrail on the side of the track.

The occupants in the trailing car get out to check on the Z06 driver who appears unhurt as he climbs out of his maimed Corvette and tallies the damage to his vehicle.

Accidents happen and in this case no one was hurt although everybody here was very lucky. This could have ended much differently. See our primer for prepping for race day.

We know every time a set of tires is rotated or replaced on our street cars we wonder if the wrench torqued everything down to spec. Maybe there is truth to old adage “If you want something done right…”

Might be a good idea to bring the aforementioned wrench to the speedway just for good measure.