Bill Warner dies going for 300mph record
Warner topped 311mph in 2011 on his heavily modified Hayabusa
SPEED King, Bill Warner, has died following a 285mph crash on Sunday at a former army base in Maine, USA.
Warner was riding his highly modified turbo-charged Suzuki Hayabusa on the same strip he clocked 311mph in just 1.5 miles in 2011.
This time, Warner was aiming to break 300mph in just 1-mile. The Maine Event is an annual timed speed event that utilizes the 2.7 mile-long runway at the former Strategic Air Command base that closed in 1994. The Loring Timing Association uses 2.5 miles of the runway for its events, and there’s an additional buffer of half a mile.
There were about 400 spectators at Sunday's event and eyewitnesses say that Warner crossed the 1-mile marker than started to veer right, he then left the runway and crashed. Data shows that he was clocked at 285mph at the time of losing control.
Warner was conscious and talking after the crash but he died about an hour and 15 minutes later at a hospital in Caribou.
