Motorcycle racer Bill Warner - dubbed fastest man on two wheels - killed in Maine
A MOTORCYCLE racer trying to top 482km/h died on Sunday in the US after losing control and zooming off a runway at a former air base in northern Maine.
Bill Warner, 44, of Wimauma, Florida, was clocked at 458km/h before he lost control but it was unclear how fast the motorcycle was travelling when it veered off the paved runway and crashed, said Tim Kelly, race director of the Loring Timing Association, which hosted The Maine Event at Loring Air Force Base.
Warner was conscious and talking after the crash just before 10am, Kelly said, but he died about an hour and 15 minutes later at a hospital in Caribou.
"No one will touch Bill's achievements or be the type of racer he was." Kelly said. "He was a personal friend and the land-racing community is less for his loss."
Riding his modified turbocharged Suzuki Hayabusa, Warner previously hit 500km/h on the same course in 2011, using 2.4km of pavement. That's considered to be the world land speed record for a conventional motorcycle, Kelly said.
This time he was trying to hit 480km/h using just a mile of pavement, and he'd made several passes before the one in which he crashed, Kelly said. The Maine Event is an annual timed-speed event that utilises the 4328m-long runway at the former Strategic Air Command base that closed in 1994.
The Loring Timing Association uses 4km of the runway for its events, and there's an additional buffer of 60m, Kelly said. On Sunday, about 400 spectators watched as Warner began veering right after passing the 1.6km mark, travelling upright for another 610m before exiting the runway and crashing, Kelly said. The remainder of Sunday's event was cancelled.
The Limestone Police Department and Maine State Police were investigation the crash.
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