Bill Warner

Born February 11, 1969 in Little Falls, New York, William Warner was born to parents who both worked in a Tea factory. Bill's father grew up a dairy farmer and his mother came to the United States from the Ukraine after the war and worked in a shoe factory. After Bill's mom spent a season milking cows, she decided working a dairy was not for her. Bill got into motorcycles at a young age after his father bought two 50cc Indian Broncos, assuming he could take the parts from the two bikes to make one that would run for Bill's older brother Ray. Bill said in the absents of brother or father he spent much of his youth pushing that minibike up the driveway and trying to bump start it on the way down. He remembers getting it started twice, the first time it died right away, the second time he took out the fence in the back yard.

Afters the Bronco incident Bill was not allowed on anything with an engine so he got into BMX (bicycle) racing. Nothing hardcore he says, just the local kids racing each other at a non-sanctioned track. Although Bill would borrow his brother's Yamaha 100 from time to time without his knowledge, then for a brief time played around on an ATV, it wasn't until 2002 that Bill actually purchased his first street bike, a 1986 Yamaha VMAX.

Bill's riding came well after his move to Florida. His goal following high school was to be a marine biologist. He basically had three choices. He first visited a school in Long Island, New York, but found the weather to be terrible. Someone told him this was typical weather, so he moved on to choices two and three, both in Florida. One was in Miami and since this was also the period of time as Crockett and Tubbs of Miami Vice fame, Bill's dad struck that option from Bill's list assuming all of Miami was a drug infested cesspool with everyone at risk of being shot or worse being forced to wear coral pink and blue-green all the time. That left the University of Tampa where Bill went to school and has remained in the area ever since.

It wasn't until 2004 that the idea of going really fast came to Bill. While watching the national news, Bill saw a story about a guy named Sam Tilley in Minnesota getting clocked on a state highway going over 200mph. As it turned out it was a mathematical mistake by the officer but it planted an idea in Bill's head. "I want to go 200mph on my Yamaha VMAX," he thought. After everyone told him that would be impossible and that it could never be done, he really wanted to do it.

Bill's first race was at Maxton Airport in North Carolina in September of 2006. He raced in the MG-1650cc class and went 180mph. A month later he went 187mph and used the winter to make some changes preparing for the next race in April of 2007 where he achieved his goal and ran 200.06mph on his old naked VMAX.

The success of racing his VMAX got Bill into a spinoff business called Wild Brothers Motorsports that sold VMAX aftermarket parts. The name came from a combination of two nicknames Bill grew up with, Wild Bill and Warner Brothers, the later after the cartoons. So he put the two together which is now Wild Brothers Racing.

In the fall of 2007 Bill purchased a new 2008 Suzuki Hayabusa. With a turbo installed and the bodywork stripped off he made his first pass at Maxton in the class MBF-1350cc resulting in passes of 217 and 226 respectively before blowing the engine. This was the first time that Bill had ever ridden a sportbike of any kind. He's been racing the turbo Busa ever since.

 

Obviously in land speed racing the objective is to go faster with each pass. The first year and a half Bill kept the Hayabusa naked, mostly because he had never ridden a bike with fairings. That unintentional style of riding ended up making him the first person to ever run 250mph naked. You do know I'm talking about the bike, right? I'm not sure riding a motorcycle at 250mph without cloths would have very good results. His personal best was 255.10 in the standing mile. Today Bill rides the same bike with handmade partial fairings and competes in the Modified Partial Streamline Body class, MPS/BF-1350cc. This past October Bill claimed the title as "The World's Fastest Streetbike" with a record run of 278.60mph at the Texas Mile. This followed a season of track records also set at Maxton (272.00mph) and Loring, Maine (273.00) finishing the year with a clean sweep. 

 

The race for 250 was only six years ago. Now that Bill has eclipsed the 275 barrier you know all these guys have the unbelievable number of 300 in their heads. I have no doubt that performance technology can make it happen but the scary part is these kamikaze pilots are riding on tires that were not meant to exceed 200mph. Technically they are rated for 186mph as set by government standards but as we can all see past governmental BS, we all know it's 200. Bill said he takes the whole tire issue very serious. He has a tight tire program which consist of tire spin and temperature sensors, plus he inspects every square inch of the tires after every run and starts every event with a new tire even though he feels comfortable that one tire would last the entire season. It will be very interesting to see how they tread on thin ice over the next few years. However it plays out you can rest assured Mr. Warner will be at the forefront of the action.

Bill Warner, who set the world record for fastest speed on a conventional motorcycle, died Sunday after losing control while again trying to top 300 mph at a former air base in northern Maine. He was 44.

The speed racer and Florida fish farmer was clocked at 285 mph before he lost control.

It was unclear how fast the motorcycle was traveling when it veered off a runway and crashed, according to Tim Kelly, race director for the Loring Timing Assn., which hosts the annual timed speed event at Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine.

After the crash, Warner was conscious and talking but died about an hour and 15 minutes later at a hospital in Caribou, Maine, Kelly said.

The Limestone Police Department and Maine State Police were investigating the crash.

"No one will touch Bill's achievements or be the type of racer he was. He was a personal friend, and the land-racing community is less for his loss," Kelly said.

Riding his modified turbocharged Suzuki Hayabusa, Warner previously reached 311 mph on the same course in 2011, using 1.5 miles of pavement to set the world land-speed record for a conventional motorcycle, according to the association.

On Sunday, Warner was trying to hit 300 mph using just one mile of pavement at the Maine Event, held annually on the runway at the base, which closed in 1994. About 400 spectators watched as Warner made several passes before he crashed.

The motorcycle he rode started out as a stock Suzuki, but nearly every part had been modified by Warner or replaced with a donated hot-rod alternative.

The bike was "built for speed and that's what it did," Warner told the Associated Press after he established the speed record on July 17, 2011.

 

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