To those who like seeing Z06s get spanked,

Take a look at the latest issue of Motorcyclist (April 2002), where they race a Z06 Corvette against a GSX-R1000 at the Big Willow race track. Let's just say one of them got their butt whooped pretty good...one did a lap time of 1:26.6, the other one got 1:34.2. And one went from 0-100-0 mph quicker than other one could do 0-100 mph. I don't want to give all the juicy details...it's really fun reading indeed!

 

I like seeing a Z06 get spanked but thats not even a close race. The GSXR 1000 in my opinion is the best all around street bike ever made. They should have put it against a 600 to make it a little more fair.

 

Thats comparing apples to oranges man.

 

That may be true Frank S, but aren't we allways comparing our pick-ups to sport cars

 

I love the GSXR bikes, they are well worth the money. I cant believe that would even try a Z06 to one of them. I agree the GSXR 600 would even put one to shame, hell my CBR 600 F4I would!!

 

Sometimes the cars almost stack up.

 

I say apples to apples also... It doesnt bother me at all that a ZO6 is faster than most of us .. They are america's dream sports car.. Not my dream, i would honstly rather have a Lightning..

True Blue 2002
13.4 Stocccccccck and i can do better
101.00

Blown 93 Lightning not stock...but i guess you knew that...
1.83
13.2
102.00

 

the power to weight ratio of the big gixer is three times that of the ZO6. that's like running the ZO6 against the "econolightning"

 

Some of these comparos get pretty funny. Lets see whether your GSXR can beat my Titan missle from 0-6,000,000 feet. Or beat my Peterbilt in the 1/4 mile- towing a 40,000 lb. trailor. Two wheels will give you a lot of bang for the buck, but lets see one beat Schumacher at the Nurburgring, or John Force in the 1/4. As for Bonneville, forgeggabout.

 

My Lightning IS a sports car and I refuse to believe it is a truck. =)

 

Alphadoggy,

The article was meant to be a 'real-world' comparison between two high performance machines that are readily available to enthusiasts, done in a controlled environment. Many sportbikers will admit that at the very extreme end of performance, cars will always be faster/quicker, since they are more stable, have better traction, have incredible ground effects, and can produce tons of power. I know that a Reynard-Honda CART car will suck the skins off a 500 cc GP race bike in every race track (fastest bike at Willow was 1:19/lap, while the fastest car was 1:06, an Indy car).

I think the test was valid, since it compares two types of vehicles that engage in 'street wars' on a daily basis. The bike, costing $40,000 less than the Z06, destroyed the Z06 (1:26 vs 1:34). The bike beat the car by eight seconds per lap. That is a huge difference in road racing. The car would get lapped every twelve laps at that pace. The Viper would maybe take a half second or second off. I'm sure the bike could beat the best street legal Porsche's, Ferraris, and even the mighty McLaren F1 in the same test. To gain back those eight seconds would require more power and handling above 1 g on the skidpad. The big GSXR out- accelerates basically every stock, street legal car out there, and will reach it's top speed (limited to 186) way way quicker than most any car. At a race track, that counts.

The article does agree that bikes are the best bang for your buck, especially when a street legal $10,000 bike is so close in perfomance to a true race bike. The best street-legal cars (including the million-dollar McLaren F1) don't even come close to their winged top-of-the-line Formula 1/CART cousins. The GSXR is within 7 seconds of the fastest race bike times, while the Corvette is about 30 seconds off a CART lap time.

And even if you could afford a multi million dollar CART car (assuming it could ever be street legal), would you want to run it on today's nasty roads? And I don't think you'd be able to stop at any local gas station for gas or a pack of smokes. And imagine the repair and maintenance costs.

In your day to day driving, how many F1, CART, NASCARs, Top Fuel, Funny Car, and land speed streamliners do you see on the road? I would bet that you don't see many. However, how many Vipers, C5s, Z06s, Supras, Porsches, and WS6s do you see every day? And since you're most likely a performance driver (being a member of this board), you would probably engage one of those in friendly competition.

Just some food for thought...

 

Gee, Jerry, don't get your knickers in a knot. I was just implying that it was ludicrous to compare the performance of a cutting edge sport bike to any car you can buy and drive on the street. I read the article today, and I was amazed at how far motorcycle performance has advanced since I gave up riding in the 80's. At one point on the course the Suzi was 53 mph faster than the 'vette. Almost 150 mph in the 1/4 mile- holy moly, Martha, what was that? I also read an article on the Panoz, and I think the LMP-1 might beat the bike, but it only costs $680,000, and you can't drive it on the street. No question that bikes offer the most performance per dollar. It isn't even close. But I anyone who uses that performance on the street is nuts, imo. There are no course workers out there spreading oil-dry in the corners, and grandma has no concept of how fast you are going when she pulls out from that stop sign in front of you. My nephew races his bike at Willow Springs, and I'm sure glad he satisfies the need for speed there, and not the street.

 

Bikes also provide the most broken bones per $.

 

I haven't seen the article, but this topic sure has the corvette boy's knickers in a knot (as alphadoggy would say!).

 

And rice is still rice, four wheels or two.