It is with regret that I report my friend and a true land speed racing star, Bill Warner passed away on Sunday July 14, 2013 after sustaining serious injuries in a 285+ mph motorcycle crash on the runway at Loring, Maine. Warner was participating in the yearly land speed event in Loring and I had last talked with him just days before his crash as he was also working on final preparation for his own land speed event that was to be held this October in Houston, Texas of which I was to serve as the announcer at. Bill had been at the Wilmington Mile events this year learning about raceday operations, layout strategies, talking with racers about what they’d like to see at an event, and generally working his ass off to prepare himself and his crew in the best way possible to make Houston a good event from top to bottom. He was constantly asking questions, assisting in any manner that he could, and generally absorbing the whole scene. He was a very pleasurable guy to hang around with. He had a great smile and an understated manner which made him even cooler than I could have imagined any guy that went 311-freaking MPH atop a motorcycle could be.

Just a couple weeks back I was listening to Bill and another rider talk about the conditions at the track and the crosswind that had kicked up during the morning. Bill was very informative as he explained the pitfalls of trying to go fast in said wind and he was also kind enough to answer my newb questions regarding what the sensation of speed is like at the velocities he was traveling. The words, “You really know you are going fast at 270 and up,” will forever be seared into my brain as they came from his lips with a smile on his face as we chatted during some rain at the last Wilmington Mile race.

I’ve read several accounts of the crash, heard a couple of different theories as to what happened, but I’m not going down that road. The facts stand that he had been clocked at 285mph and then something went wrong enough that he came off the motorcycle and slid more than 1,000ft before coming to a stop. He was awake and talking to medical personnel as they left the track in the ambulance and then later passed away. It is a situation that others have succumbed to. Mark Donohue and others have left the track in a conscious state, never to be seen alive again. In the coming days and weeks local investigators will complete their reports, release the information and we’ll “know” what happened during Bill Warner’s final moments. You won’t read it here because it’s all moot at this point. At 44 years old, Bill Warner passed away.

As Bill and I talked at Wilmington (where he came to shake the bike down on a couple of “easy” runs in the 200mph neighborhood), he beamed with pride on the new paint job the bike had and how he had planned to auction the bike after he was done with it at Loring (assuming he completed what he was going there to try and do, which was run 300mph in a mile). The previous paint job had been laid on by Bill himself and since he planned to sell the bike he thought it was only right to have it looking its best. I enjoyed the fact that it was a simple pickup truck and trailer operation that Warner had. A marine biologist with a tropical fish farm in Florida, he knew what he needed and that’s what he had. There was nothing about Bill outwardly designed to impress anyone else and to me that’s the mark of a great sportsman. He literally let his bike and his skills on it do the talking.

Things didn’t go as Bill had planned in Loring. We’re all a little the lesser for it, but all is not lost. Bill Warner’s accomplishments will have a lasting legacy. There are men and women across this country preparing bikes and cars to go land speed racing because of “that guy that went 311 on a motorcycle”. I know of one racer building a machine specifically aimed at trying to best Bill’s records. Those folks won’t be stopped by his passing. Instead their resolve will be strengthened to compete as Bill would have wanted them to compete, to ride as Bill would have wanted them to ride.

Laura SanGioVanni took the below photo at Loring yesterday morning before Bill’s last ride. I’m sharing it here because it captures Bill, his humble racing operation, and the machine that he rode so successfully for so many runs. He will be missed by many.