Bill Trovato is exceedingly experienced when it comes to race cars, race engines and setting them up for peak performance on the track.

As a racer and the owner of BTR Performance in Rochester, New York, he knows so much, and he does so much, to secure success, but at the same time, he understands some things are beyond his control, and that includes his crash at Battle of the Thrones in March of 2025 at Rockingham Dragway in North Carolina.

“My car turned left and went into the retaining wall, and I hit head-on,” said Trovato, who was competing in Ultra Street. “It was a very hard hit, and then my car started spinning around, and because the fuel cell split, fuel was being thrown and there was fire. When my car finally came to a stop, I could not get my belt off, and I was fiddling with it as quickly as I could when my crew member, David Mitchell, who was helping that weekend along with Steven Fucili, got over to my car and helped me. When I was fiddling with the belts, David’s phone started ringing and it was my wife, Marianne. She saw the crash on the live feed and she was crying. David handed me the phone and I said ‘Hi, hun. I am a little busy trying to get out of this car. Can I call you back?’, and I did.”

Trovato, who was teased by friends because his hair gel kept his hair in place despite what he had been through, did take a trip to the hospital to be checked out, as he was experiencing pain in his neck and tightness in his throat. Doctors ordered a CT scan and later released him.

According to Trovato’s data, the force of the crash exceeded 8Gs.

“I had never been in a crash, and I thought I would make it to the end of my racing career without being in one, but someone I know said if you play the lottery long enough, your number will eventually come up, and I guess my number came up,” said Trovato.

Because of the extensive damage to Trovato’s well-known 5th Gen Camaro, it could not be loaded into his trailer, so Nick Filippides of American Racing Headers in Stanfield, North Carolina, made arrangements to have it moved via a flat-bed truck to his facility. The next morning, Trovato, Mitchell and Fucili went there with his trailer, and after some cuts were made, they were able to load the car.

It was then taken to Steve Scavuzzo of East Coast Collision in Rochester, New York, where the mangled rear clip was removed and will be replaced with a rear clip purchased from a junkyard. Scavuzzo put the car on a frame machine at a friend’s shop, Brennan Automotive in Ontario, New York, and pulled everything back into shape. He will also apply primer on the car before it goes to Farks Supercars in Newport, New Jersey, where the front end will be rebuilt.

“I will have to break the piggy bank because of the accident, but I am still very fortunate,” said Trovato. “When I was driving home, two of the phone calls I received were from Steve Scavuzzo of East Coast Collision and George Farkouh of Farks Supercars, and they said they just wanted me to know they were on board with whatever it would take to repair my car.”

When the car, which has a four-link suspension by Chassis Engineering, is ready, Trovato will put his BTR Performance-built LS nitrous engine back into the engine bay.

“I shut the engine off when I hit the wall, and other than the dry sump smashing into the wall, the engine is not damaged,” said Trovato, of the engine built around a Dart block with GRP rods, CP pistons, Edelbrock heads and a CID intake. “I will pull apart my RPM Turbo 400 to take a look because I don’t want to assume it wasn’t compromised in the crash.”

After that, Scott Haynes of Mr. Hustler Performance will help wire the car, and Trovato will return to racing.

“I am handling this much better than I thought I would,” said Trovato. “I was not seriously injured and my car is being repaired, so I am taking the good with the bad.”

(Photo courtesy of Bill Trovato)