With all this talk about racing big bikes, I decided to ask my craziest friends to bring their bikes over for a comparison with my Ruf.

Ground rules:

1. Everyone uses 91 octane.
2. No one dies.

The 1-liter bikes were driven by crazy guys who are very fast. They are the Yamaha R1 and the Suzuki GSX-R.

Here's the results:

1. From second gear at about 40 MPH to 150 MPH, the bikes were about 4 car-lengths ahead. The riders were leaning well over the handle bars with the front wheel a few inches off the ground most of the time. They modulated the throttle up to 13K or so to do this.

2. On a 5-mile winding mountain road with some straights but mostly turns, I had the time to pull over, get out of my car and wait a few seconds for the faster guy to catch up. They almost left the road a few times trying to stay with the car. No comparison.

I'm sure there may be faster and crazier bikers, but then again you could probably find a faster and crazier driver for the car. Sorry I couldn't take video. Things were moving way too fast and I didn't want a passenger in my car.

 

Bill, that's awesome... It must have been a lot of fun!

Those are some amazing results... You must be a great driver and your car is really fast!!

Kudos to you.

 

Bill,
What kind of power is your car putting down?

 

That pretty much matches my experience with the bikes I've owned. I've owned a TLR,929 and a GSX-R 1000. Nothing came even close to the GSX-R. And that was feathering the throttle to keep the front wheel on the ground. Kinda the same for the 929. Although the TLR was a V-twin and somewhat heavy, it still kicked butt. I remember a guy racing me in a 02 Viper (Blue with white stripes) and trying like hell to pass me up on a straight road. The TLR kept getting ahead each time. I 've owned many Porsches including some beefed up turbos and a couple of twin turbos and I love them dearly, but 1 liter bikes shouldnt be discounted. They are fast period. Even in stock form.

 

Don't really know. From what I know about Ruf's ratings and racing other modified turbos, I'd guess about 490 to the wheels with 91 octane and 520+ with 100 octane. It's only a bit slower than a CGT when I raced Ben a few times.

 

What year was the Gixxer? There's a big diff between 04 and 05.

4 car lengths from 40-150? were you maintaining that distance the whole race or did you close the gap at the end?

your riders need a few lessons in launching if they were skimming the front wheels the whole time from a roll on no less. i could see if they were racing from a dead stop, but you guys were doing rolls ons. they were obviously not wide open throttle during the race and should have put a hell of a lot more distance between you. there is no reason why they couldn't have the front wheel planted the whole time with WOT and not have the wheel ever come of the ground from 40mph in 2nd gear.

i find these bike/car racing posts comical. I can see cars being much faster on a track with having four large contact patches vs two tiny ones. drag racing though...maybe with Mana's new ride. yours...not likely. tell your buddies to quit showing off with the mini-wheelies and go WOT next time.

ugggh. can't believe i'm getting involved in another one of these threads

 

Don't stress. I'm only calling it as I see it. If you've had a different experience, show us video and tell us what kind of car you raced. Properly modded Porsche turbos and Vipers are very fast.

BTW, the Suzuki was an '03 and the bikes pulled quickly ahead at first and then slowly pulled near 150. I don't know what would happen if we went faster. On the typical SoCal country roads, the car is clearly faster then the bike. Even on the freeway, I'm sure the car will be right on the bike's butt at 180+.

 

Just get the latest Motor Trend or Car and Driver can't remember which one has a complete test from rest to 1 mile. Ranks top speed and time to get to one mile. The bike was very fast but WAS BEAT by the Saleen S7 twin turbo and the 1000 hp Viper. The reason stated was the bike sucks aero wise which was the same thing stated in this forum by another member regarding this whole bike versus car thang.

1 liter bikes are wicked fast but can be beat by modified cars. End of discussion.

Or in the case of the Saleen stock.

 

i think we had already agreed that riddiculous HP supercars were more than capable of taking on a bike. we don't have too many on our forum though. i know there are a couple of 1000 HP vipers on here. not to mention, top speed runs aren't really relavent on the street. we were talking about highway roll ons in those discussions.

when you break into the nines with trap speeds over 145 Bman, let's race. till then, at $2.60 a gallon for premium, i'm not gonna waste my fuel

 

Given the power levels involved, and from my experience racing bikes, I have no reason to doubt this. Bikes definitely get slower when you get to 120, 130+, and you start to reel em in then. From low speeds, they are bats out of hell. His car isn't slow.

This, I've never seen during a roll-on race. From a dig, sure, it's very common. But the wheel comes down at probably 30-40 mph - just estimating. Even the fastest bikes Ive raced have always kept the front wheel down past those speeds...

 

If I ever get my car back I will do one quarter mile trip for fun. I will let you know what she does. But again on the highway from say 80 up to 190 I would bet my car could take you. Again due to the aero issue.

 

I think the speed doesn't matter. Any kind of cars can't follow Bike's thrill and fun. and that's for sure. I always miss driving a bike everytime I see bikes.

If I didn't win that racing I might have been bought a bike.

Always drive safe bikers!

 

The truth here is simple. If you aren't bumping the rev limiter at the light on the bike then I will always be able to show the bike my lights. 95% of the boneheads on the street can't ride and have a 4 inch gap on either side of the center strip on the rear tire. For those of us that ride ( I have since I was 16) we know that we can be beat. I had my *** handed to me when I had a Ninja 1000 back in the early 90s. A Stillen drag 300ZX left me like I was standing still. Bikes have changed a bit since then but it still happens. Especially on the street.

I am not dumb enough to run a turbo Busa that is a different world. The best run I have had was a ZX12R that was a bigger bore, cams and head work. It took from a 80 roll to 183 before I could get clear of him. We ran three times. I would yank about a 1/4 car length then that was it. From there we stayed even with me ahead until I could finally start putting some distance on him.

Most of these stories are street environment which means that the person riding the bike probably doesn't have a clue how to ride and I would bet doesn't even have his bike license.

It goes both ways folks. Cars more than not will be beat, bikes however will also. BTDT and continue to do both. The nice thing is I have had as many bikes as I have had big HP cars and know how it goes on both sides.

This is a age old discussion. Funny it always keeps coming around.

 

I don't think I would need to run 9's to beat you the Saleen ran 10.8 and the Hennessey Viper 11.0 versus the bike which turned 10.4. But by the end of the mile both the Viper and Saleen got to the mile faster than the bike and at a much higher speed.