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e g the sam pe, tappin stronauts. lo e v n e da the pilots an pushing g meant wrote about test in c a r , y he tall . licks and men ted when and balls base just a few c .5 hysically m Wolfe celebra requisite brains ir f1 P a o 2 e -5 c n B balled ith the r a dista nly on tuff ” To d’s face th e S w o n v t o d ie m h e e fr ig k — c R m is h “ nh mp is sa ersto but o his race e smile o r was ov t ed 311.95 here at th efore — potted th as still straddling elmet Warne ummers earlier, arner had clock n two wheels b arner was the firs s s r e ll e S h o s W w 1 b W o e ll , 1 r . o e il e s w e 3 B e n B n T m . g is r li black dian ed. H h in a like lu eaway ill Wa the Cana broken 300 mp et-shaped sleds, bike, body expos at would dead giv of the tarmac. B i Hayabusa. The d merrily, teeth f a o s a y h w s k d he grin squinte the end sepower Suzuk going iders ha ered, roc ld on an upright ined speed like th bullet. ed up to lue eyes r clocked miles. R rs, which are cov ta er sho e r th as he pull ed-up 1,000-ho er’s bathwater-b had just been h e ne. A sus .45 calib p n r rn oid cer streamli ough the 300 m cycle had ever go the velocity of a oking fo lo s n bike, a ’r the gas tank. Wa ivories. The ra 50s. w thr rom fa rs motor st half e F lo te r o . o b id la la n n n r lm u o o to is . a o ia g ti g , s h p e ip s n n r r tte 0o st a ond was sitti d bright as new missioned airstr s, a thin Texan in , his lean frame , meant a the faste m the 50 n ten sec an eller bike n was a mile in less tha Warner called it ts. And today, fro ecom S o e d d n e th e s w th ff a o straight o n d te s ntrac er,” a cover ically a mph dow o happy about?” aid as he twisted e front end stays ig numb nsors waving co ide.” was bas r b “ e 296.128 to t s s th H d a l u le . n h il c o e e T B y y h rc ,” re g aw cycle ha ine. m spo “What a ll you something rotective suit. “W is not a fun moto unning for a proachin here no motor m that ip in Ma phs. Fro p a tr r a s g ir g a to p it g in u , e r te a w p n o e th th o e ee th su “Let me sprang fr tators at boldly g ith som black lea e front end come d Warner had b etch. But since and spec eyed Warner w ding physics to — Warner’s feats er talk about it tight in a an str th e t il n o -m n fr e s e e le n d a b wrapped is a blast. When g, Maine, Sellers o rer, Peop ar W rn -guy an be in just a stantly, th in g, it ace explo s, touching oce ’d never, ever he reached his nice p s d this thin kend here in Lor i over 300 mph — ice kicking in in men had been e d n lp u b u A o r o y e g r t v g ju in e e u k e p n h h B u e T z , uc ie. ance All w re. Top ossible. sh the Su ruly. With so m r during takeoff. ard-ball smooth or arrog look like no bigg e this would gone befo push what’s p cord: pu n ortance billi ine p le tl t, us a o m to ib je c h s -i a h e s s world re bike had been u lf c l f b o e o it y p same ccessfu gly im mble, s e nose peciall e u u s s in th h th E t . , m y s e y y e top. ly e e k la a a e u li t th s th r w id a Fr e out at that. T de the ed his said as a lling up ges. Th e w s r u k im o r m u p a li b e r ’s s e ll e n r e a e loaded th n e e r S ik w ce. Wa to go,” wheel , then un verings, et the b ll eyes w 300 in a mile, th s fa r k a r , u r c e e e o il ja k h a in it o r a tr a p e str sp ay in M Break nts and lastic co trying to ess. half mile On that d before retiring. gh the rows of te , aerodynamic p by the cc ee and a r u s e th s ig t u c t n B A a ro ta logged tire o a t. r g a e g t th d in in s m e a ly n v la p n o im o e o is d T w e lu e h t s b s ’v e r w fo b r and ting r l che t Coa Selle “Bill, you the pits. rner and ed with new silve . At his laptop, Bil ance routine, hun e >> p8 y the Eas door of another . a b d e d W r e te to s w o k s e h c e e sam inten g on th . It gleam ” Bill an y who machin n event drove ba id his ma n worked with th knockin get four, untry gu ting Hayabusa gs, sheathed the ly 14, at a Sellers d e . n m “Let’s go day this past Ju Bill Warner was as just a quiet co u e it in r h s t ir s T e fa the la om: th alled at un w oolant. By that S as no surprise th tral Florida, Bill ns, he was a phen s against the c e’s computer from el, draining the c r n fu ik fa w e e b e e it id C c , r th a n r g in it f toppin sociatio rd. Back home umber o acing. Matches p ad notched more damage, co a niche n r world re sh farm. But for alled land speed es. And no one h al fi sport c distanc ran a rur vely new speeds over set e. ti la e r a f d decad king o recor ning for rds in less than a n u g , k c clo reco rner: 27 than Wa
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silent care and countdown nerves as engineers prepping for a NASA moonshot. Sellers followed his rider to the starting line for his third run of the day. Bill’s eyes scanned the engine temperature. He flicked on the water pump. With his left hand on the clutch, his right put the bike in gear. The engine revved to 6,000 rpm, the bike’s fat growl climbing to a high buzzy whine. As Bill let out the clutch, the bike rolled a few feet, as gently as if it had been pushed. Then, when he was ready, tires began screaming. He shot off into the distance. In a little over a minute, the PA system barked out the results: 293 mph. When Sellers fetched Warner from the end of the track, the smile was scrubbed from his face. The rider barely spoke. Sellers could feel the disappointment radiating off his friend. Disappointment and the need to do it again. Warner was usually so prepared he rarely made more than one or two runs. Almost never four. But Sellers could tell his friend wasn’t going to turn in without hitting his mark. They repeated the prep. Around 10 a.m., Bill’s engine again revved at the starting line. With a nod to his crew chief, he threw the bike forward. Sellers watched as Warner quickly disappeared down the tarmac. Far ahead, where the runway rubbed against the treeline, Sellers spotted a small puff of smoke. ny kid dead-sprinting to an imaginary finish line alone in the backyard knows the urge: Go fast. Go faster. Put the same kid on wheels, same story. Land speed racing officially began in the late 1940s, when racers found their hot rods — mostly Fords tricked out with V8 engines — were too much for the cities and suburbs of Southern California. In 1949, they stumbled on the Bonneville Salt Flats, 30,000 pancaked acres of dried-up lake bottom in northwest Utah. The public land became the perfect running ground for racers testing Cadillac and Oldsmobile V8s of the early 1950s at top speeds and, later, motorcycles. Unlike drag racing, where two vehicles try to outgas each other, land speed racing is more about pushing the machinery to the max. “You don’t have to worry about the guy next to you smashing into you. You have to worry about yourself,” says Guy Caputo, a 57-year-old land speed racer from Ohio. “I always say land speed racing is where old drag racers go to die.” Technical advances propelled the sport. In the 1970s, turbo systems were introduced; by pressurizing the engine, the upgrade doubled the amount of horsepower flowing in a bike’s veins. But the real breakthrough for land speed racing was the Suzuki Hayabusa. Introduced in 1999, the $12,000 computercontrolled bike could punch 180 mph right out of the showroom without any upgrades. “It changed everything,” explains Larry Forstall, a longtime racer and mechanic from the Philadelphia area. “The guys now had these big powerful motorcycles, and what are they going to do with them? You can’t go 190 mph on a United States highway.” Up until the mid-’90s, racers had to haul west to Bonneville to ride. But in 1995, the newly formed East Coast Timing Association started holding land speed runs on abandoned airstrips, pieces of land that were long, empty, and safe enough for the matches. Local gov-
ill Warner was born in Little Falls, a dot of about 5,000 people straddling the Mohawk River where it carves a sharp valley through the hills of upstate New York. He was the youngest of three kids born to a former dairy farmer and a Ukrainian immigrant. Friends say the parents kept a loving yet strict grip on the kids. But there were always ATVs and dirt bikes around the house for grinding through the nearby woods. Once Bill’s dad bought two broken Bronco minibikes so he could patch together one working bike for Ray, Bill’s older brother. With the house empty, Warner would roll one of the bikes up and down the driveway, hoping the engine would catch. The only time he got the thing going, it blasted through a nearby fence, he’d later recount. In the mid-’80s, when a small dirt track opened, Bill and friend Tom Panko dragged over their beat-up bikes only to see they were outgunned by the competition. “He was racing against these guys with bigger engines,” Panko recalls. “I know he was competing for first, neck and neck, even though he didn’t have the same equipment.” Later, old enough to drive his dad’s Dodge Colt, Warner rarely passed up the opportunity on straightaway roads to roll up the windows and see how far he could throw the needle on the speedometer. In high school, Warner kept a low profile — an impressive disappearing act, considering Little Falls High had only about 90 kids in a class. Outside of a few friends and the occasional girlfriend, Bill didn’t socialize much. He did compete, though. Whether he was doing crazy workouts with the varsity wrestling team or going stroke for stroke against friends on the golf course, a drive to win peeked through his otherwise quiet, friendly demeanor. For college, Warner decided on the marine biology program at the University of Tampa. “His interest in marine biology was that it was in Florida and around girls in bikinis,” Panko jokes. “He never was really looking to rebel or anything. He just wanted to get out and do his own thing.” Warner stayed in Florida after graduation, working as a fish farmer around the state. In 1995, he was part of a six-person team tasked with creating the wetlands exhibit at the soonto-open Florida Aquarium in Tampa. Warner was on the freshwater fish and alligator detail. He eventually left to open his own operation. At his farms — over the course of the late ’90s and 2000s, he bounced his Warner Aquatic Resources around three different locations — Bill raised cichlids, tropical freshwater aquarium fish indigenous to Africa. Typical for his personality, he picked a challenge: Cichlids were mouth-breeders, meaning he had to manually wrench open their jaws to pour out the eggs. Business hiccuped along, and at some point in the early 2000s, Warner began buying old motorcycles to sell off the parts for extra cash. He eventually turned up at his Wimauma farm with his own Yamaha V-Max. Online, he met a group of Florida riders; together, they buzzed around the state to races at Daytona and Bradenton. The weekend warrior’s first small step to high-speed glory came in 2004. As Warner later explained to dirtbike.com, he saw a news story out of Minnesota about a radar gun glitch resulting in a 200 mph speeding citation. The number snagged in his head. “I want to make a V-Max go 200,” he announced to his buddies, adding he’d >> p10
Photo courtesy of Don Smith
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Photo by Trillium Muir
Top: Bill Warner holds more than 27 land speed records. Bottom: When Warner switched to a Suzuki Hayabusa, he entered a new spectrum of faster speeds.
ernments were more than willing to rent out the space. First in Moultrie, Georgia, and a year later at a shuttered 1.9-mile World War II airstrip in Maxton, North Carolina, riders began gathering. Today there are only five sites in the U.S. holding land speed events. Still, land speed racing remained an outer isle in the auto junkie’s world. NASCAR and Indy racing, with their celeb drivers and six-figure jackpots, got the attention. There was zero prize money in land speed; sponsorships were nil. And the risks were undeniable. The fiercest tornados, which spin near 130 mph, rip down entire towns. Land speed racers regularly flirt with 200 mph. A crash means serious injury — at least. The sport drew a small following of speed freaks and techies. Scattered across the country, enthusiasts communed on online forums like suzukihayabusa.org, later cementing friendships at matches. Some guys, like Scott Guthrie, built their own success into a brand. Dubbed the “Sultan of Speed,” the Tallahassee-based racer logged hundreds of 200 mph runs on his own, then began sponsoring young riders on his own bikes. Other riders, like Toledo’s Guy Caputo, are essentially one-man operations. “When I break a record, I get a nifty certificate, a T-shirt, and a hat,” says Caputo. “Who wants to spend $60,000 on a motorcycle to get a certificate and a hat? Well, along
with that goes bragging rights. What can you tell me about you that you are the only one in the world? For nine years, I was the only one in the world with the fastest nitrous-injected motorcycle on the planet. For nine years.” Bill Warner began knocking off standing records in the mid-2000s. By accomplishing so much in a small blip of time, he was like the Tiger Woods or Tony Hawk of land speed, the one guy who excelled so completely at the sport that he became synonymous with it. Until Warner racked up his big number, the sitting record had been stuck in the 260s. “When the rest of the world was trying to go 260 or 270, he went 311,” says Don Smith, a Chattanooga-based freelance journalist who covers racing. “Usually records are broken in tenths of a mile per hour. Bill just obliterated these speeds and jumped it 53 mph. There hadn’t been a 10 or 15 mph increase in 20 years before that.” By becoming the sport’s biggest name — its great exemplar — he inched it toward mainstream. “It was just a confluence,” says Forstall. “The bikes came along, the racetracks came along, and Bill came along.” Adds Guthrie: “What he accomplished was the equivalent of when there was nobody in the NBA over six feet tall.” You couldn’t have picked a more unlikely guy to be the sport’s Michael Jordan.
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do it “naked,” or without a turbo system. Only three bikes had ever been clocked at that speed without modification, none a V-Max. It was like saying he wanted to take a Cessna for a spin in Earth’s orbit. “I said, ‘I’ll try to help you do it,’ ” recalls Jerry Gainey, a motorcycle tech from Orlando who rode with Warner. “ ‘I don’t think we’ll be able to do it, but we’ll try.’ ” hen Bill started shooting down the track at Maxton on his V-Max in 2007, he quickly earned his stripes as a fearless competitor with mechanical smarts. He wasn’t the first rider with the combo, but he did bring something unique to the track: the marine biologist’s soft spot for scientific data. It helped that Gainey was ex-military and could appreciate detail. Together they began logging the minute aspects of the bike’s performance using computer tracking. “We wrote everything down, and we’d only make minor adjustments to the bike at one time,” says Gainey. “There’s so many things you can do to a bike that will help or hurt you to go fast.” The team noted the effects of each run like lab techs eying bubbling test tubes. They’d add a drop of extra fuel to the injector, then note the difference. By comparing the front and back tire speeds, they could see where the bike was losing traction and adjust the clutch accordingly. Bill also cut weight on the bike whenever possible, swapping the bike’s battery for a moped model or steel parts with aluminum. In spring 2007, Warner and Gainey trucked the nine hours from Florida to Maxton. Day three of racing, he was clocked at 200.06, still a snail to the Hayabusas’ blitzkrieg but incredible nonetheless — no one had ever ridden a VMax that fast. It was the first significant mark on his scorecard. At a ceremony that night, Warner was inaugurated into the East Coast Timing Association’s 200 club. He got a certificate, a ball cap, and golden bragging rights. “To me, it was a big deal, and it made me feel great to see it was special to other people also,” Bill later wrote on his website, wildbros.com. “As I shook the other 200mph members’ hands and listened to their speeds, I felt close to each and every one of them (even though they all were faster than me :-).” But Warner wasn’t going to let others go faster than him for long. In fall 2007, he upgraded to a 700-horsepower, firstgeneration Hayabusa. The ’Busa’s turbo fuel injection system delivered the mechanical equivalent of a hit off a crack pipe. The bike’s advanced onboard computer also recorded more than 60 performance readings during a run, leaving bread crumbs of data on everything from intake and exhaust temperatures to throttle and suspension positions. It meant Warner could have a millisecondby-millisecond diagnostic on his bike. And although racers before him had access to the same minutiae, Warner was the first to really soak in the stats. Hitting top speed was a matter of expertly harnessing physics, adding the right amount of turbo boost at exactly the right time — but not too much at once. “It was about the rpm’s when you’re shifting gears,” says Trillium Muir, the fastest female land speed racer. “We probably had lower rampup rates than most but higher boost rates.”
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Warner’s secret method of exploiting the data and knowing exactly when to shift and punch the turbo left other riders in the dust. Back in Wimauma, Warner set up a dyno — or stationary harness — inside a cargo shipping container where he kept his bikes. With engine heat and exhaust fumes cooking the metal room like a microwave, Bill would run the ’Busa for hours, then carefully analyze the bike’s behavior. The extra intel made all the difference. “The old days of grip-it-and-rip-it — my hand is my computer? That doesn’t fly anymore,” says Walter Kudron, a New Jersey-based racer who became Bill’s close friend and sponsorship coordinator. “In our sport, a tenth of a mile an hour could be the difference of setting a record or not.” In 2009, Warner beat every competitor at four of the five matches he attended. The next year, at the Maxton season opener in April, the rider arrived hoping to beat the track’s record, 260.28 mph, which had stood for five years. When a bike sponsored by Scott Guthrie broke the record at 264 mph on an early run, Bill went back to his data. Thirty minutes later, he blew past the new mark at 272 mph. That July, Bill was clocked at 273 mph in Loring — eight miles faster than anyone had ever gone on that track. That October, in Goliad, Texas, Bill demolished the strip’s standing record of 261.5 mph with a 270.7. Afterward, Bill went back to the trailer to scan the numbers. The next day, he clocked 278.6. On race days, when riders and crew members were juiced up with missile-launch anticipation, Bill always seemed to live inside his own calm ozone. After setting a record, he celebrated, but in his own idiosyncratic, low-key way: with French fries. The still surface was deceiving, friends say. Inside, Warner housed a relentless, no-brakes compulsion to win. If someone said he couldn’t hit a record, he figured out a way to do it. If another racer was chasing a big number, that became his next goal. “I think it was probably bottled up inside of him and when he found racing, it just exploded,” says Larry Forstall. “I think there also was a certain fear of failure. He worked extra hard to make sure when he got there, it worked right and he didn’t look stupid.” Warner stowed away his ambition by snipping it completely free from ego. He didn’t gloat, never boasted. Despite growing records, Bill remained a Florida Everydude, a friendly guy who wore only shorts, white New Balance sneakers, and T-shirts and was so frugal that he’d eat at any discount buffet he came across, even if it meant he’d likely lose the next day locked in a bathroom. That striving flashed in only one area: Warner wanted to be on a magazine cover. Such big-time attention would prove to his family that his accomplishments in riding meant something. “They really didn’t understand the desire to keep going faster and faster,” says Muir. His favorite song was Dr. Hook’s ’70s anthem “Cover of the Rolling Stone.” When most diehards in the land speed racing world agreed that going 300 mph was out of reach, Bill had his new goal. uring the winter bridging 2010 and 2011, Bill Warner was on lockdown at the Wimauma farm. The ponds were empty, the fish business at a standstill. Bill always lived simply on this one-acre plot
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the racer learned he’d not only passed the also ramped back up Warner Aquatic Rewith a pair of Dobermans, but that winter, “What do you mean, we lost Bill?” 300 mark but screamed by on the way sources, his fish business in Wimauma. he’d whittled his life down like a monk. “Let me ask you something,” the doctor to 311.95 mph, the world’s fastest motorBut just when Warner seemed ready for the continued. “How fast was he going when Egg-salad sandwiches and Campbell’s cycle rider made a humble speech. next step, he heard Guy Caputo had drummed soup were all he ate. The weight drained this motorcycle accident occurred?” “There’s no fame, there’s no glory, and up sponsors for his own monster Hayabusa. from his frame, his once-rounded face now “I don’t know, probably around 300 mph.” there’s no money in this,” Warner said as he His goal: blitzing 300 mph in a single mile. sunken like a deflated basketball. He spent Sellers caught a change in the doctor’s eyes. Warner’s drive revved up again. He days inside a barn, endlessly reviewing online stood with both hands touching the cool“The human body cannot take trauma such ing bike. “My prize is hearing from you wanted to nail it first. Bill penciled in his tutorials and tinkering with new parts. He as this from a 300 mph accident,” she said. swan song in July 2013, when Loring was was piecing together a monster: a new Suzuki guys and getting my hand shaken by you. Something had gone wrong about 4,000 So I really appreciate everyone that’s here holding a match. After that, he’d sell the bike. Hayabusa he’d later dub his “race bike.” feet down the track. At the time, Bill had and all your comments. Thank you all.” But Warner wasn’t the same guy who’d By 2010, Warner’s reputation was still been accelerating, hovering somepopped 311 mph in 2011. The Texas crash had platinum-grade; companies were eager to where around 286 mph. The rider and his shaken something loose inside. Call it a burst front the parts in order to get their stickers bike were thrown in opposite directions, arner was flying. Chipped runway paint of delayed doubt, common sense, or some on what would be a history-making motorlanding hundreds of feet apart. Local pozipped along under his wheels. The whispery intuition of what might be waiting cycle. Although its final value was probably lice are still investigating what exactly speedometer pushed past 200 mph. down the track, but Warner told more than around $100,000, Warner paid nothing and caused the crash. Bill’s family and girlfriend Slipping through wind, the edges of his vione friend he was worried about the ’Busa’s assembled the pieces himself. “There were a were too upset to talk for this article. sion started to melt while the Texas horizon power, trying to get up to 300 in a short lot of comments online [speculating] the bike But friends say Warner could not have dead-ahead went high-def. But then with distance. “He had to maximize acceleration took ten years to build,” Forstall says. “The been coaxed off his bike before the last run. sudden sea legs, the tunnel vision rocked to but not overdo it or the tire would spin like insiders just laugh, because it was just Bill.” “He wouldn’t have been happy,” explains the right, then left. The bike slowed, skidRegular bikes were Trillium Muir. dangerous enough. In “He wouldn’t have 2009, Bill and Jerry been fulfilled.” Gainey had been pullRiders turned up ing weeds out of the in Little Falls for the bike’s wheel after a funeral. Warner’s washout when Dave casket was carried Owen, one of the by six friends from most well-liked and racing — including respected guys in land Sellers, Gainey, Muir, speed, was killed on and her husband. A the track at Maxton group toasted the going just over 200 loss in a nearby pub, mph. But 300? No endless spinning one had handled a “Cover of the RollPhoto courtesy of Don Smith bike at those speeds ing Stone” from the before. Basic physjukebox while the Land speed racers shoot for maximum speeds over a set distance, a style of competition accommodated only on abandoned airstrips. ics dictates that the regulars shot over amount of kinetic puzzled looks. “We crazy and the front end would lift,” Forstall energy you’re pointing down the course injoked about playing it 311 times,” Muir says, ded. The machine flopped over on its left says. “It’s a very fine line, and it got even finer creases exponentially the faster you ride. The her voice still soggy with the memory. side, slamming the rider to the ground. with the short distance. It’s two-thirds the problem was stopping. Most of the tracks The death sent a dark premonitory The crash came in October 2011 in distance, but he’s going the same speed.” hosting land speed events were on 9,000-foot note whistling through the race world. Goliad, Texas. His ribs were broken, a In early summer of this year, Warner called The mourning seems both for the man runways; after accelerating, there were still lung was punctured, and he’d severely up Sal Spatafora, who had warned him earlier. and the achievements he embodied. thousands of feet left to slow down. But on mangled his left foot and knee after the “Last time you told me, I really didn’t think some record runs, Bill’s past bikes had burst Warner’s closest friends are taking hard ’Busa flipped on its side. He was stuck in about it,” the racer said. “But as I’m getting past the end of the runways into the brush. looks at the sport. “I’ve got a few mixed a Houston-area hospital for 26 days. older, I’m starting to think about it more.” Would the same amount of track be enough feelings now about the pavement events,” Bill Warner was just becoming big“I think he started getting to slow down, even with more energy? Bob Sellers says. “We’ve realized there’s a time. With 311 in the books, T-shirts and spooked,” Spatafora recalls today. Sal Spatafora, a race mechanic who knew potential danger in what we do. It makes me ball caps were printed up with the digits, Warner was more direct with others, Warner well, warned his friend. “Some of second-guess it.” The crew chief has been tokens of his achievement. Tech journals right up through that weekend in Loring. the big bikes that I’ve built, I don’t feel too out to the Bonneville salt flats since the crash, and motorcycle mags featured stories on “Can I ask you something?” Bill said comfortable on them,” he counseled. “I working with another rider. But the experihis racing, though the bike’s simple blue to his friend and crew chief, Bob Sellers, love the speed, but they’re just not factory ence fell short of his time with Warner. With paint job kept it off the covers. The backon the Friday of their final stay in Maine. smooth and reliable. Once you push the the racer gone, his Houston Mile event isn’t and-forths on online forums about his “Have you ever played Russian roulette?” horsepower up, the reliability comes down.” likely to happen. Muir and her husband quit bike and technique went on for pages and “No, Bill,” Sellers nervously replied. The new Hayabusa looked unlike a usual racing partly because of Warner’s death. pages. Kids started asking for his photos “Why would you ask me that?” road bike. The entire surface of the vehicle was Other riders are lining up behind his legacy. and autographs. Warner always said yes. “Because that’s what I feel wrapped tightly in a teardrop-shaped blue Warner’s approach to statistics has yet to be “He was almost embarrassed by the like I’m doing here.” plastic covering. The aerodynamic streamlinreplicated, and his friends are mum on exactly success,” Forstall says. “The publicing cut both ways: It helped acceleration, but what Warner would look for in the data. Reality that he got was not something he a good blast of wind was enough to topple the istically, it’s only a matter of time before somelooked for. But he knew he had to do cerhe paramedics were already surrounding bike. The key was to carefully increase the bike’s tain things because of the sponsors.” one else begins finding the same patterns. Bill where he lay in the grass by the time power strategically while avoiding bad weather. Guy Caputo is still aiming to push his But the Texas spill shook Warner. He Sellers rushed up from the starting line. On July 21, 2011, under a low blanket of gray decided to retire. Instead of racing, he’d put own bike over 300 mph in a mile. “I’ve Following the protocol of race accidents, clouds at Loring, Warner boarded his motorgot records; I’ve got accolades. I used to on his own event. A second act as a promoter Sellers kept his distance, waiting back on the cycle. In two earlier passes, he’d clocked in the be the world’s fastest nitro bike. But I’m would allow him to still capitalize on his tarmac where the ’Busa’s tailpiece was aban290s over 1.5 miles. The few hundred spectarecord, but the calmer role fit where his life doned. As they loaded the racer into an ambu- still not really satisfied,” he says. “If I go, I tors scattered around the course all expected want to go like Bill, in a blaze of glory.” was headed. Easing into his early 40s, he’d lance, a medic told Sellers that Bill was “alert, the next run would crack the coveted mark. But Warner’s final glory — a word he probamet a Lakeland woman named Lori. They’d responsive, and conscious.” Hanging tight The race bike growled out from the startbly would have cringed at — won’t be his death dated for the past couple of years. More to those words like a lucky mantra, Sellers ing line, quickly knifing down the runway. but all those big numbers he left standing. “It’s than one friend told Bill he’d met a keeper. followed to the hospital in nearby Caribou. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the PA system going to be a long, long time before anyone goes Throughout 2012, Warner planned After being shuttled alone into a announced moments later, “we just had the 311 mph on an open-wheel motorcycle again,” his event, dubbed the Houston Mile, a small waiting room, Sellers was joined first motorcycle in history go over 300 mph!” says racing journalist Smith. “Maybe never.” motorcycle and car land speed race schedby a surgeon. He assumed his buddy was Once the crowd cheers died down, uled for October 2013. Guessing he’d banged up — Texas all over again — until after Bill embraced his friends, and once need income after he shelved racing, he she spoke. “I’m sorry, but we lost Bill.” Kyle.Swenson@BrowardPalmBeach
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