Car vs. Kawasaki ZX-14: Ultimate Street Showdown

In the world of street racing it's run what you brung and hope you've got enough. Unlike official racing with regulations to level the field, life on the street is a high stakes gamble full of tall tales, big upsets and total uncertainty.

In a time-honored tradition, competitors on two and four wheels meet under the veil of darkness in secluded areas to battle for the title of "King of the Street." Some races are for respect and some are for money, but all are serious business.

Modern sportbikes are marvels of technology that can cover the quarter mile in the 9s at 150 mph and almost touch 190 mph right off the showroom floor. As such, when a streetcar is fast enough to be deemed "nasty," the natural question is, "Will it beat a bike?"

Some might consider this an odd sense of flattery as bikes are often considered the ones to beat. In actuality, it only fuels the age-old car versus bike conflict.

A simple online search results in car guys posting clips of their rides "smoking 'Busas" and the bike guys retorting with vids of them destroying any car imaginable. In most cases the bike submissions are believable, but when you see various 12-second cars walking liter bikes it starts to raise doubts.

Having suffered through dozens of laughable vids of flip-flop clad riders losing to slower cars, we noticed one common flaw-rider error. Although any vehicle requires a certain level of operator aptitude, motorcycles require far more skill than cars. Under wide open throttle you're holding on for dear life, trying to keep the front wheel down while making sure you stay off the rev limiter and in front of the competition. Also, consider that motorcycle engines are smaller, thus needing more RPM to make power and you can see why getting caught in the wrong gear can turn a 10-second bike into a 14-second snail.

And then it hit us; Let's take the user-error out of the equation with a competent rider, grab one of the fastest stock bikes available and finally end the debate.

So, after a few calls we gathered nearly 3000 HP worth of the sickest streetcars in the country and decided to put up or shut up with only a Kawasaki ZX-14 on our side.

**Disclaimer**
Street racing is illegal, stupid, and dangerous. In no way, shape or form does SSB condone it. No laws were broken during the making of this article and all acts were completed on a closed course.

The Contenders

The Main Event
With the players gathered it was finally time to get on it. While you might assume we'd test 0-60 sprints, quarter-mile times or maybe even top speed-you'd be wrong. Instead, we decided we'd keep it more akin to modern-day street racing and go from a roll. That's right, many non-sanctioned "races" take place from a rolling start, thus eliminating the skill needed to launch from a dig.

It's true, some might call roll racing weak-sauce, but no matter how you cut the cake, it's the most common form of racing these days. We decided a 60-120 pull would be an ideal compromise. Starting from anything slower would hinder the traction-limited high-powered cars and ending any faster would hurt the less powerful vehicles. The addition of timing equipment added a scientific element to the races, which normally isn't a part of the underground race scene but was important to our results page...

Its pull from a Benjamin upward was simply scary. The faster the speeds the harder the Viper pulled, but in the sprint to 120 the Kawi still nipped the Viper for the win. Judging by the Viper's power though, had we raced to higher speeds the tables likely would've turned.

How The Speeds Differ
Going fast is a simple equation of power, weight, aerodynamics and traction. By nature, motorcycles are much lighter than cars and thus need less power to go fast. However, bikes are also less aerodynamic and produce less power from their smaller engines. In other words, a bike's strongest asset is its lack of weight.

On the other hand big, heavy cars use their bigger, more powerful engine, better traction and superior aerodynamics to their advantage.

A good analogy would be two balls at the top of an incline, one heavy and one light. The lighter ball will obviously get going much faster than the heavier one, but once the heavy ball is rolling it has the power to catch the smaller one. Lightweight motorcycles tend to be better sprinters, where heavier, more powerful cars tend to be the best high-speed haulers.

How Would You Fare?
In essence, you can tell a lot about the speed of a vehicle by its quarter-mile performance. Generally, the elapsed time (ET) is a reflection of traction and weight, while the trap speed is more of an indication of power.

If Bike A runs the quarter-mile in 9.0 @ 130 mph and Bike B does it in 10.0 @ 160 mph, which is faster? Well, Bike A had a better ET since it got there in nine seconds, which means it won the sprint likely because it was lighter and had better traction.

Even though Bike B got beat by one second to the finish line, when it got there it was traveling at 160 mph-30 mph faster. This means that it got a slower start but once it got the ball rolling it had more power (or force behind it) and it was catching up, fast.

Given more time, Bike B (the more powerful ball, remember the analogy) will catch and pass Bike A, the smaller, lighter bike.

To see how your bike stacks up against these cars, compare your ETs and traps and see if you've got enough. You may have a better ET but at a lesser speed, which means in the long run (above 120 mph) they'll catch you.

Time To Speed: 60-120 MPH Roll Race

While it's possible to build a car that can beat a bike, it certainly takes more than a buck. Our stock ZX-14 cost a tick over $12,000, while the Viper has nearly $50,000 in addition to the cost of the car, yet still didn't beat the Kawi. In the battle for supremacy you can't beat a bike's bang for the buck.