Which is faster Bike or Car

[miataman]

At work I proposed a question to my co-workers; which would win in a 0-200-0 mph race, car or bike? It went back and forth for a while then everyone kinda sided with the bike. If you had a 1000hp say EVO8 vrs. a turbocharged Hyabusa which would win? A built and streched Hyabusa should make 350hp and be in the single digits 1/4 mile times. I think the EVO because of all the rubber on the road it has over the bike it could brake harder 1000hp Evos do exsist and should be around 9 sec. 1/4. The argument then is, if the bike is a little quicker to 200 would it be able to stop like the car? I am going for time here not distance. Which one do you think would do it faster? I vote evo, feel free to sub in your car of choice ie. Hennesy Viper.

[Dean]

Do you really mean 200MPH?

The number of cars that can reach 200 is very small, and bikes even smaller I think.

The aerodynamics make the last 20MPH almost exponentially tougher than the first 180. Your choice of car and bike will make all the difference. Horsepower is almost irrelevant compared to the aero. My basically stock STI did >150mph out at Bonneville, but I don't think any amount of HP would permit it to go 200 without changing the aero.

The 200-0 is all contact patch vs. weight. I would guess the car could dominate in that area, but the extra contact might increase 0-200 time. Again, all about resistance.

["A" Stocker]

Hennessey Twin Turbo Viper 1000 did 0-200 in 20.3 sec, I'm not sure a Maxed out Huye' could do it that fast.

[miataman]

Good to here I have some support for my car winning this race. If your concerned about aero so much maybe an ultima GTR would be the car of choice. I am thinking theoretically that the car would be the ultimate winner because it would always have more rubber on the road. I agree that bikes don't regularly hit 200mph speeds and therefore are not all that areo dynamic either. A 500lb 1000cc suzuki GXSR bearly reaches 180 and is drag limited, even with 160 rwhp on tap. John who drives the "Rotofire" said he was in aww of an evo with huge power at the silverstate chalenge that won the race 0-200-0 against all commers last year. So, I believe that with enough power a brick could do 200. Also on youtube you can watch an AMS EVO run the 1/4 in 8.4 sec at ~170mph and that car has 1150whp. At that pace shouldn't it be quicker to 200 than the Hennessy?

[Dean]

My point was you are in a world of comparing custom vehicles, so why stop at alleged "street" vehicles. And over 100MPH Aero is just as important if not more so than power.

If you start a competition for 0-200-0 with prize money, people will engineer the solution and then you will have your answer. :)

There are drag motorcycles that do 6.5 second and lower second 1/4 miles at over 220MPH and top fuel dragsters that do it in 4.5 seconds at over 330MPH!.

Put brakes on either of those and maybe some larger front tires and you will kick the ass of any Viper or Hyabusa you could build.

Just putting brakes on the rear tires of the dragster will probably get you 0-200-0 in under a 1/4 mile and under 10 seconds. They do 270MPH for the 1/8 mile in just over 3 seconds and 0-200 in 2.5 seconds in what, 1/10th or less of a mile???

I think in general, a 3 or 4 wheeled vehicle is going to win this battle in a theoretical world just from a stability and aero options perspective. Throw in the ability to support more weight and put more acceleration in either direction to the ground per pound and you have the winner.

["A" Stocker]

There used to be an old video around showing a stock bike, a Road Race Bike and a GT-1 Road Race Car at Lagune Seca. As you can figure the Stock Bike lost every time, but so did the Road Race Bike all do to braking and excell out of the turns. They started the stock Bike, 10sec. later the road Racer Bike and 10sec. later the GT-1 Car, before going into the "Corkscrew" the GT-1 car had passed both of them and this was in the old configuration of Laguna, which was faster. I'll put my money on the car every time...

[S2kreno]

Anyone seriously considering this should be calling a suicide prevention hot line. Really.

[sperry]

In general bikes have only one thing going for them over cars: acceleration. Since straight line acceleration is the maneuver that generates the least amount of g-force, the bike can make use of its great thrust to weight advantage over a car because even its skinny rear tire can hook up such relatively little acceleration. But in all other aspects, the car has the advantage. Cornering, braking, aero, etc are all better in a car. The larger tires and no need to lean over to turn make cars handle in all maneuvers better than a bike despite their greater weight.

So the real question is "in a 0-200-0 race, can the thrust to weight advantage of a bike outweigh its braking disadvantage?". IMO, no way. An F1 car can brake at over 5g. Even if you could get a bike enough traction to brake that hard, you're never going to find a rider strong enough to hang on to the bike when his body weighs 750lbs. And that's ignoring the fact that it's trivial to build a car with the same thrust to weight ratio as a bike, and much better aero if you've got the funds.

The bike loses. Period.

[miataman]

After talking with Vic Chalk and Scott yesterday at our RFR autocross they both claim that a bike would win this race. They claim that bikes suck in turns and are only marginal under braking yet Moto GP lap times are exteremly similar to Daytona Prototypes around laguna. Vic says that the only reason this is so is because bikes accelerate like mad. Their cornnering speed sucks compaired to the cars but because laguna has so many areas of hard acceleration the times are almost the same. Scott claims that a streched turbo busa will do a 1/4 at 200mph. Someones always got to throw a wrench in the chain just when the cars superiority was gaining ground. Both say that it wouldn't even be close race, bike wins. Get those typing fingers ready Vic.

[S2kreno]

I'm taking out life insurance policies on all of you.

[sperry]

After talking with Vic Chalk and Scott yesterday at our RFR autocross they both claim that a bike would win this race. They claim that bikes suck in turns and are only marginal under braking yet Moto GP lap times are exteremly similar to Daytona Prototypes around laguna. Vic says that the only reason this is so is because bikes accelerate like mad. Their cornnering speed sucks compaired to the cars but because laguna has so many areas of hard acceleration the times are almost the same. Scott claims that a streched turbo busa will do a 1/4 at 200mph. Someones always got to throw a wrench in the chain just when the cars superiority was gaining ground. Both say that it wouldn't even be close race, bike wins. Get those typing fingers ready Vic.
Wait, is the question about "a car vs. a bike" or "an EVO vs. a 'busa"? If we're talking about specific vehicles, then the answer is going to be pretty clear based on the capabilities of those specific vehicles, which sounds like the bike's acceleration will indeed be enough to counter the EVO's braking ability.

If the question is about the platforms, and which platform is superior, then a car is going to dominate, as it's possible to build a car w/ the same thrust to weight as the bike, but with better aero and braking because of the layout of the platform.

[miataman]

The question i have posed here is more about the platforms and less about the specific vehicles. I only chose the busa and the evo because they are common and the laymens at my work could relate. I am still on the car side of the coin. Hands down with the ability to add downforce the car wins. A street baised car with little to no downforce i think the bike wins. I absolutly want to see this race both ways with and without downforce.

[BillH]

It's an interesting question but if you're talking platforms, it's impossible to answer. The only thing you could say and only gerenally ia tha a bike accelerates faster and car brakes better, generally. Would a Miata beat a Honda Trail 90 ? Would a Miata beat a Hayabusa? If you go into specifics, you can play with the numbers and make either a winner ( a 1000HP EVO v.s. a 1000HP Hayabusa).

If you take 2 stock perfomance rides:

Z06
3175 lbs./505 HP
6.2 lbs./HP
0-60 3.7 seconds
60-0 100 feet

Hayabusa
485 lbs./197 HP
2.5 lbs./HP
0-60 2.9 seconds
60-0 115 feet

What does this tell you? Not a whole lot.

The only thing I'm positive about is that Vic's right, bikes don't corner for chit. I've roadraced both.
IIRC, the Moto GP's at Laguna were turning 1:21s. A test driver in a FI turned a 1:09, not that this has any bearing on the 0-200-0 thing.

[sperry]

In the 0-200-0 race, the thing to look at are drag bikes vs. drag cars. Like Dean pointed out, top fuel drag cars are doing 200 mph in what, the 1st 1/16 of a mile, crossing the lights at 330mph. Meanwhile the fastest drag bikes are just getting to 240 in the full 1/4.

My point is that in series where people are pushing the limits of cars and bikes, the cars are capable of *much* faster acceleration. And as we know as a platform, the car can brake much better as well. A top fule dragster built with braking in mind is going to be much better in a 0-200-0 race than a top fuel bike built for the same race.

[nmhansen]

Again, not that it has any direct bearing on the 0-200-0 scenario, but at Sepang MotoGP race, Rossi qualified with a 2:01 lap, and later in year at the F1 race, JP Montoya pulled the circuit lap record at 1:34.

I'm going to agree with Scott and Bill here, in the specific case, its going to be a toss up between the two specific vehicles. But, if we are talking abstract types, where the maximum development of each type of vehicle is allowed, then I'd say the car will win at nearly any challenge thrown its say.

EDIT: And to make this all the more interesting, the fastest Evo (or any mass produced vehicle) lapped Sepang at 2:15.