MIKE’S CORVETTE JOURNEY

Mike Brink’s obsession with Corvettes supposedly began on a brutally hot Dallas afternoon in 1987, when a mysterious stranger pulled into a gas station off Northwest Highway driving a fire-engine-red 1967 Corvette Sting Ray. According to Mike, the driver wore mirrored sunglasses, cowboy boots, and a gold chain with a tiny crossed-flags Corvette emblem hanging from it. He looked at young Mike, pointed at the Sting Ray, and said, “Son, there are cars—and then there are Corvettes.” Before Mike could even respond, the stranger fired up the big-block V8, roasted the tires through the intersection, and disappeared into the Texas heat. Nobody else at the gas station remembered seeing the man, leading Mike to believe he may have encountered what Corvette historians now refer to as The Ghost of Bowling Green.

From that day forward, Mike dedicated his life to America’s sports car. Legend says he could identify a Corvette generation at night simply by the sound of it accelerating two blocks away, and by the 1990s he had been unofficially banned from several Dallas Chevrolet dealerships for “asking too many questions.” His collection grew, his knowledge became borderline ridiculous, and eventually he became known throughout the Corvette community simply as Brink. Today, Mike Brink remains one of Dallas’s most enthusiastic Corvette evangelists, firmly believing that horsepower is a legitimate unit of happiness and that every major problem in life can be improved by getting behind the wheel of a Corvette and flooring it.