What happened in MOTOR 16 years ago? We raced a really fast car against a really fast motorbike!

It’s a speed war shootout as Australia’s fastest on four wheels battles the meanest on two

Here’s a fact. Porsche’s ceramic brakes, standard on this 911 Turbo S, are an $18,990 option on the Carrera. An entire Suzuki GSX-R1000 retails for $18,950. Yep, a bike is $40 cheaper than brakes.

This article was first published in the August, 2005 issue of MOTOR

We’ve proved the Porsche 911 Turbo S is fast. With an 11.9 second ET, it rips up the quarter-mile to stamp it firmly in supercar territory. Sure it costs the same as a house, but before we even start bragging, those smug motorbike gits start smirking, suggesting that the true use of the word ‘super’ ends in ‘bike’. And costs a whole lot less. Tossers.

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But frankly it’s a fair argument. As car guys, we’ll happily sacrifice a little speed for the comfort of a roof, radio, air-con, windows, heated leather seats, conversation with a passenger and the security that four tyres offer to ensure imminent death isn’t around the next corner in the form of a patch of gravel, a patch of oil or another motorcyclist’s spleen. But exactly how much speed are cars sacrificing? And in 2005, can a fast car compete with a fast bike?

As a bike rider, I can see from both sides of the climate controlled door glass and those not used to Gimping up in full-body leathers for a Sunday morning blast may not fully realise how fast crotch rockets are. In a straight line, even a half-decent bike will be in the next suburb and finishing an oil change by the time a fast car grabs second gear.

Though GSX1300, R1 and ZX-10R sound like chemical compounds, they do represent some serious speed. And knowing their haughty belief in the superiority of bikes, we issued a courteous challenge to our sister mag Australian Motorcycle News (AMCN): “So you bicycle wankers wanna race a car, before you all kill yourselves on the latest Hondasaki PMT1300? Try and stump up with something decent too, ’cause we want something fast to beat…”

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"The bike is cranked over so far, it scrapes its footpegs at turn four"

Funnily enough, they accepted. Enthusiastically. If that’s what “Screw you car girls, see you at the track,” meant.
Knowing our challenge was serious, AMCN called in the current big gun of supersports, a machine so fast they label it a hyperbike: Suzuki’s GSX-R1000. Sh*t. It may not roll off the tongue as sweetly as Carrera or Boxster, but roll on a handful of throttle and it’ll suck the skin from your eye sockets faster than you can say ‘have I prepared a will?’

From just 999cc of twin-cam, fuel-injected four-cylinder, the performance of the Suzuki is, as much as its pains us to say it, not in another ballpark, but another sport. Though the Porsche has almost three times its power, it also has ten times its weight. The Suzuki’s power-to-weight ratio makes a Ferrari Enzo look like an off-roader. A Hummer.

Over the standard speed tests, it’s laughable: 0-100km/h in 3.26 seconds is exactly one second faster than the hard-launching all-wheel drive turbo Porsche. And the bike’s 10.4 quarter-mile – faster by 1.6 seconds – included wheelspin from a foggy, greasy morning track.

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And that’s the Suzuki’s Kryptonite, its contact on Earth.

Tyres that are barely wider than a car’s space saver, with a contact patch the size of a mobile phone, are expected to transfer power to the road without transferring body parts.

The organ donor in charge of the two-wheeled machine of death was AMCN’s deputy editor Sam Maclachlan, a pretty handy bit of bike ballast if 100-metre-long wheelies are anything to judge a rider by.

Knowing the GSX’s reputation for speed and our genuine desire to beat the bikers, we didn’t want to let the car down, so we enlisted V8 Supercar driver Warren Luff. The experienced Stone Brothers’ Racing driver does Porsche Experience training days, holds a bike licence and knows the fast way around our chosen challenge track, Wakefield Park, near Goulburn, NSW.

A tightish 2.2km loop built on the side of a hill, Wakefield favours both car and bike in different areas but with similar results, evidenced by the current V8 Supercar record of 60.0, versus the Superbike lap record of 59.9 seconds.

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TRACKSIDE

Time to get serious. With tyre pressures brought up 2psi front and rear, Luff hits the track in the 911 Turbo S and immediately bangs out a fast 1:07.78, beating our previous record around Wakefield, a 1:07.94 in BMW’s M3 CSL.

Warren’s strength is his ability to set a fast time early and repeatedly. A lap later he trims it to 1:07.60, backing it up with a 7.7, 7.8 and a “that’s as fast as she’ll go”. Time to strap the VBox to the bike.

The car and bike’s strengths and weaknesses are almost opposite around Wakefield. Across the start finish straight, the bike is braking 50 metres before the turn one kink, back to second gear, which it holds for the rest of the lap.

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The 911 brakes ‘at’ the kink, the awesome ceramics and six-piston calipers slashing speed from the Turbo at insanely late distances. Using fourth, third and second, despite its weight, it uses the stability of all-wheel drive and the grip of four fat tyres to wash off speed every bit as equal as the lighter bike. But then the car turns in faster.

By turn two’s apex, the 911 holds a 6km/h advantage and edges in front. But up the hill to turn three, five times the torque means little when the amazing acceleration of the bike winds out second gear to the limiter and puts it back in front of the car with a large 12km/h advantage.

From here it’s car land with tight, cambered, high-lateral g-force corners that allow the car to use its mechanical grip. The 911 loses a little through the tight turn four because of the fast direction change before it that better suits the bike. But through the top three corners, the bike is always turning, cranked over so far it scrapes its footpegs – and Sam’s knee sliders – at four.

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But the Turbo is quicker through the cambered downhill turn five, thanks to the car’s ability to use the extra width of Wakefield’s kerbing. Warren aims the car’s inside tyres at the smooth kerbs, straightening the curve and maintaining speed. Sam, on the bike, is avoiding the slippery kerbs like they’re ice. Which to a bike, they are.

Through the sweeping downhill right turn six and left-turn seven, the car is flat and full boost in third, Warren eases for a fraction on entry into seven to pull in the nose. The bike is cranked over and unable to put power down; upright for just a second between the turns, a quick wrist twist blasts the bike up to match the Porsche’s peak speed of 148km/h, before again being outbraked by the Porsche into the tight left-hand turn eight.

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Amazingly, here at half-track they’re dead even, each with a split time of 35.5 seconds.

The second slowest corner on the track, the apex speed at turn eight again goes to the car which drops down to second gear, fights understeer and then, because of Porsche’s front-rear drive split, power-oversteers on exit before grabbing third.

The Turbo uses its torque and grip to full effect between eight and nine, on the limit of sliding and holding third gear, for what proves to be the most interesting comparison of the track.

At the turn nine right-hand sweeper, the car’s mechanical grip gives it an advantage of 10km/h. But from here, the bike flexes its muscle.

Once upright, the GSX-R storms out of the corner, trying to buck Sam as the tyres follow the road seams that the 911 didn’t even notice. In the short 200 metre straight, the bike turns a 10km/h defecit to a massive 16km/h advantage.

But the Porsche brakes 40 metres later and draws dead even with the bike, both tipping into the final turn ten corner with a 54.1 second split time.

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Braking into ten, the slowest on the entire track, bumps unsettle the bike and lift the rear tyre off the ground. The Suzuki turns in earlier and smoother, where the car apexes later to straighten the exit. Remarkably, both carry the same 61km/h at apex.

The Porsche gets on the power earlier, but 50 metres from the corner, as the bike gets upright and the Porsche grabs third gear, it’s like the 911’s dropped anchor as the Suzuki romps away insanely fast to be 35km/h faster over the start/finish line. Top speed in the Turbo is 201km/h, despite being on the power for 80 metres longer. The bike peaks at a massive 226km/h.

Lap time for the bike? Using Warren’s 1min:07.7sec as the target, Sam builds speed throughout the day from
1:10s, to 09s, a few 08s, then high 1:07s. The car is still in front for most of the day, but Sam grows balls and finally satisfies his day-long complaint of not being able to get heat and grip into the front tyre, and from his 12th lap of the session bangs out six laps faster than the Porsche. His best of 1:06.5 is 1.1 seconds faster than the 911 Turbo S.

So the bike gets there, pipping the Porsche at the post. Sure, we used a pro in the car, but we also chose the best bike around.

Yes, a bike pro like Superbike champ Shawn Giles may have gone a second faster and yes, the car is 18 times the price of the bike, but at the end of the day, after the final shot was taken, in the dark, with 9 degrees ambient temperature, Sam mounted up solo for three tortuous hours of blistering cold wind and the sound of a four-cylinder thrashing away at 5500rpm in sixth gear.

Warren and I accepted the car’s 1.1-second loss, cranked up the Porsche’s heater, CD and conversation, and cruise controlled back to Sydney in comfort.

And wondered if Suzuki would consider swapping a bike for some slightly used ceramic brakes?

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