Sam Wheeler, a renowned land speed motorcycle racer, is dead after the high-performance bike he was testing at Utah’s famed Bonneville Salt Flats fish-tailed, went airborne and crashed at 320kph. He was 72.
Wheeler died on Monday afternoon at Intermountain Medical Center in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray because of traumatic injuries suffered in the motorcycle accident, hospital spokesman Jess Gomez said.
Wheeler was going about 320kph during a test run when the back of the streamliner motorcycle started fish tailing, said Mike Cook, the event organizer who witnessed the incident.
His motorcycle began to slide and then popped into the air and came crashing down on the caged section where Wheeler was seated, Cook said.
Wheeler was alive when emergency crews extracted him from the wreckage, but he died about four hours later at the hospital, Cook said.
“We all have real heavy hearts,” said Cook, organizer of Mike Cook’s Bonneville Shootout. “Land speed racing is one of the most family-orientated sports there is the world.”
Wheeler, an engineer from Arcadia, California, was known as an innovator and pioneer in the sport. He spent more than two decades building, fine-tuning and racing a motorcycle on which he reached speeds exceeding 480kph, said Pat McDowell, a fellow racer and longtime friend.
At one time, he held the land speed record for motorcycles, McDowell said.
“He’s was pretty much one of the legends of our sport,” McDowell said. “He did it with his brain, not his wallet.”
Wheeler was testing the motorcycle this week in anticipation of two big races next month and in September at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
He had been working on the motorcycle with a goal of setting the world speed record and surpassing 640kph, McDowell said.
“Everyone was rooting for him, even competitors,” McDowell said.
Wheeler is survived by a wife and two children, McDowell said.
The family could not immediately be reached for comment.
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