The Suzuki Hayabusa and drag racing go together like heirloom tomatoes and the height of summer. You pretty much can’t have one without the other. Much like taking a bite out of a perfect tomato at the peak of ripeness, the Hayabusa is utterly resplendent on its throne at an awful lot of drag racing events. In a skilled rider’s hands, it’s a great drag bike—but is it better than an all-wheel-drive Porsche 911 Turbo S?
That’s the central question posed by this drag racing video, brought to you by the fine folks at British vehicle outlets Bike World and Carwow. For those unfamiliar, Bike World’s Chris Northover is a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast, former British Superbike racer—and, of course, an experienced motorcycle journalist.
Meanwhile, Carwow’s Mat Watson is a veteran in the automotive space, with editorial and on-camera presentation experience—as well as, of course, helming just about all the four-wheeled drag race videos that Carwow releases. While you can’t know everything about a competitor’s level of experience if you show up to your local drag event, it’s always helpful to have some context if you can.
This test of two-wheeled vs. four-wheeled domination is broken into three parts: The standing-start quarter-mile drag race (best two out of three), the rolling start drag race, and the brake test. Of course, before all that, the pair of them both need to warm up their tires—so it’s donut time for the Porsche and smoky burnout time for the ‘Busa, as you do.
Once the tires are properly warmed, it’s standing-start drag race time. Although Chris is clearly psyching himself up to get the best possible launch that he can, and although it’s an incredibly close race the first time out—the Porsche bags it in the end. AWD and traction control seem to be dialed in superbly on that car, and the Hayabusa just couldn’t bridge the gap.
The second standing-start race is even worse. Even though Chris later says that he got the best possible launches that he could—balancing the rear brake, clutch, and throttle—the Porsche’s traction control is nigh unbeatable from a standing start. What about launch control on the ‘Busa? Chris brings this up, too—and says that in his experience, using launch control or not using launch control doesn’t seem to actually help in terms of his speed in getting off the line efficiently.
So, now that the Porsche has roundly trounced the ‘Busa on the drag strip, it’s time for the rolling-start quarter mile. Chris suspects that the Hayabusa will do better here—and as it turns out, he’s 100 percent correct. Take the launch out of the equation, and the Hayabusa is more quickly able to get up to speed and go blasting past the Porsche.
The final test is brakes—and unsurprisingly, the Porsche is able to stop from 100 miles per hour by nearly three to four car lengths before the ‘Busa comes to halt. Although, as Chris notes, it’s still a lot quicker than the stopping distances recommended by the current road rules in 2022, it’s definitely a significant difference.
At the end, the two drop some hints about their next drag race—although not enough to really build specific anticipation about. Will the TTS Performance supercharged Hayabusa be involved? That’s purely wishful speculation on our part, but whatever it is will probably be worth seeing.
