After watching the video above, the cynical might feel the urge to utter such prophetic words like “that’ll buff right out.” But for those who have spent months on their favorite car and put all your blood, sweat, and tears into it, the video might make you cringe a little.

This 1968 Chevelle SS looks like your average musclecar, complete with Cragar SS wheels that were so popular in the 1970s. Most of the time, these musclecars see very little street time because the owners just don’t want to take a chance at dealing with all of the maniacal drivers on the roads these days. But the autocross seems pretty safe, doesn’t it? You can control your own speed, nobody else is on the track, and so what if you take out an orange cone or two – that will definitely buff right out.

But sometimes there are other objects that become obstacles, put in place simply to protect others in the case of a car and its driver getting a little bit out of control. In the case of this ’68 Bowtie, that object was a K-rail that was placed after the finish line.

The driver went through the course without hitting a single cone, and after the first lap you could see and hear that he had stepped it up a notch and gave it some more juice. Coming out of the last sweeper, however, he was just a little too heavy on the throttle and got sideways. It appeared that he was going to save it, but then over-corrected and got himself switched up, and tragedy ensued. Missing the finish poles – and a light pole that would have done far more damage – he took out a K-rail with the front left corner of the Chevelle.

Fortunately, nobody was injured, and the fact that the K-rail wasn’t fixed like the light pole, the damage was not too severe. Still, it does make us cringe when we see something like this and hope it doesn’t discourage others from taking it to the track rather than hitting the streets when you want to drive fast. It could have been worse – especially on the street. Does seeing something like this discourage you from entering your car in the autocross?