Before this gets out of hand (like most threads on this board seem to), lets clarify a few things. Yeah, Ken and I were set up - we pretty much knew this going in but who wouldn't jump at the chance to do what we did? The test took place the Friday before the Labour Day weekend. We rode the bikes there, across Toronto, rode them all day and then rode back - the temp that day was 33 degrees C.
We had three practice runs at the strip before the timed runs - and we only did two of those. We used the approved, NHRA Christmas Tree timing. As indicated, the Suzuki has a very tall first gear and no traction control, making it difficult to launch properly. I've been on a drag strip once before but Ken has done a lot of drag racing previously.
Braking? It's a given the cars would win this. We rolled along the strip at 120 kmh and applied the brakes at the end of the 1/4 mile, right where a lot of engine blowups occur. Again, two practice stops and two for official distance.
Road course - we got a total of about six practice laps before the timed ones. I'd ridden Cayuga once before in 2002 and Ken had never been there. I'm pretty sure all the experts posting here couldn't have done much better, riding a bike they'd never ridden before on a track they'd ridden nine years earlier with six practice laps under their belt. Plus, I thought the format would be a standing start, a warm-up lap, then a flying tmed lap, like WSBK Superpole but after, I found out that both laps were timed. Didn't matter - the GSXR's brakes were fading so badly, the lever was coming back to the grip after four corners so I didn't feel comfortable pushing it any harder.
Rob Mac and others, thanks for backing me up. Corbo, don't know who you are but as for "not that fast on a track" let's just say I'm smiling over that one and I'd compare racing resumes any day.
The point of the exercise was that it requires very few skills to go fairly fast in a car under various conditions than it does on a motorcycle. That point was made when I took the Porsche out and, even though I'd never driven a car on a track before, I was four-wheel drifting and hanging the *** end out within two laps.
Given a full track day situation, we could've set up the GSXR's suspension properly and I could've easily found two seconds as at Cayuga, that's only about a quarter second per corner. No problem. But with the time available, it just wasn't happening, especially as we had to ride the bikes home again.
Thanks to everyone for reading the article. As I said, next time I'll bring a CBR1000 with Honda's sportbike ABS. It'd be even better if we could do it at Mosport or Shannonville - two tracks I'm a lot more familiar with and could get up to speed a little quicker.
