I saw a post on another site that there was a death at a Div. 1 race. Horrible crash, prayers sent to the family. Reports are saying William Janke.

God Speed!

That is correct....God Speed Bill!

When ever there is a tragedy like this I want to know what happened, why and how to prevent it from happening again if possible.

His wife put out a statement saying he passed doing what he loved.

The video was horrific

Does anyone know the cause of the wreck?

Condolences to the family

Very sad for his family and friends. RIP

Is it true he was ejected from the car? I just don't see how that's possible. I didn't see the live stream or video of it so i was sure. Saw they had track issues as well. Just horrible.

Sad deal for sure lot of questions because the car he was in was a quality build piece.

https://troopers.ny.gov/news/fatal-crash-speedway

I have been told it was a freak accident, that the car got upside down on top of the jersey barrier and the roll cage snagged in a gap between the barriers at high speed. This led to the roll cage ripping out of the car.

No, I was not there and I can not say this is 100% factual….. this is just what I was told by someone I trust.

Says he was ejected from vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene. So there was a major failure somewhere. May he Rest in Peace. I guess if I was going to go that would be as good as any and quick.

I replayed the video several times before they took it down. He was dialed 6.40s went about 6.6, 173 mph in the eighth and 166 at finish as I recall. He was in the right lane and was having troubles of some kind from half track on,drifted toward the center line and got very close to the center line when there was a puff of smoke or steam or both. The car then turned hard right into the wall with the front end, also when the car turned side ways the air lifted it off the ground and it was literally flying. Then body panels flew every direction and there was a very quick explosion that looked like the whole fuel cell burned at once. The last thing you could see was a bare chassis spinning and flipping through the air before it landed outside the track on the right out of view. It was indeed a very violent crash, not sure if it would have been survivable if he had stayed strapped in but it is disturbing to think that the chassis and his safety equipment seemed to have completely failed if what we have heard is true. Prayers for his family and the track personnel.

I once had my arm restraint strap catch the lever on a Simpson seat belt and completely unlatch my belts as I was in the staging lanes getting ready to make a run... I guess anything can happen during a violent collision. It would be nice if the NHRA released an official statement of what happened so we can maybe prevent it from happening again but they will only do that if they can tie it to a new requirement or certification that they can profit from. My condolences to his friends & family.

If it was an NHRA track I believe they impound the car and will not release it until they find cause of crash and what failed. (in this case there may have been multiple failures?) I think they do it for several reasons, 1. Insurance and 2. Protect them from liability. So we may or may not find out why it happened from them. Depending on what they learn there may may be new rules to help prevent another accident like that. After the Ken Singleton fire they came out with several new rules for alcohol funny cars. Ken did survive but he was burned badly.

NHRA is about safety and sometimes I think they go a little overboard but it may be because some people do not take it serious. I see some stupid stuff sometimes. Rules say you must wear long pants for bracket door car so they put on nylon highly flammable pants right before a run. That is worse than nothing!

I bet you engine diapers have saved dozens of lives and many cars. Yet some still refuse to run one. And they are cheap. That makes no sense to me.

My hope here is that we find out why this crash happened and learn from it to save future lives.

If the State Police responded (and I heard that they did) I'm pretty sure they can impound the remains of the vehicle if they so choose.

quote:

Originally posted by SlyFox:
If the State Police responded (and I heard that they did) I'm pretty sure they can impound the remains of the vehicle if they so choose.

NHRA impounds vehicle if it was an NHRA track and will not release it until they do their investigation. Not sure how it works on IHRA or WDRA track but probably similar because they want to protect themselves from lawsuits.

dang y'all got all the answers but don,t know where it happened ....lol....