[MMARSH]

few years back kevin schwanz ran a corvette z06 and a gsxr1000 at willow springs in a back to back test. both were both bone stock. the fastest he was able to go in the Z06 was 134.xx. On the GSXR he was able to turn a 126.xx. The test was run by motorcyclist magizine. Andy Pilgrim wasn't happey with the results.

Here's the letter to the editor from Andy Pilgrim.

"To the Editor:

I’m writing this on behalf of the Corvette owners and other sports car enthusiasts who encouraged me along this path. A few months ago I read an article in Motorcyclist magazine. The cover story was a track evaluation of a Corvette Z06 and a Suzuki GSX-R1000 with ex-500cc World Champion motorcycle racer Kevin Schwantz as the dedicated tester of both vehicles. I thought it was a very interesting concept for an article. After I read it, however, I had one major issue: I felt that the lap times for the Corvette were not where they should be and showed the Corvette in a really bad light. This opinion was based on my own experience with the Corvette Z06 and my testing of numerous cars at Willow Springs (the test track), even though the last time I was there was at least four years ago.
I received several e-mails from people who had read the article and wanted to know what I thought about it. Without exception, after I gave them my opinion, they suggested I go to Willow Springs with a Corvette Z06 and run it, to prove something one way or another. One of the guys I discussed the article with was Joe Policastro, owner of Grabiak Chevrolet in New Alexandria, PA. Joe not only suggested going to Willow Springs, but also put up the money and rent Willow Springs for a few hours just to set the record straight. Grabiak Chevrolet sells a lot of Corvettes and Joe definitely took it personally after having to defend the Corvette to some of his customers after they questioned him about the article.
The biggest issue I had with the article was the difference in best Willow Springs lap times between the Corvette and the Suzuki. Kevin managed a best lap in the Corvette of 1m 34.2sec and a best on the Suzuki of a 1m 26.6sec, a huge gap of 7.6 seconds. The major point of the article seemed to be illustrating how areas the bike was better than the car virtually everywhere around the circuit. They even used “Smackdown!” as the article title. But as a current professional car racer, ex-motorcycle racer and current street motorcycle rider, I felt this was unfair to the Corvette and to sports cars in general.
For our Willow test we managed to get the use of a totally stock Z06 with 1,500 miles on it. Ex-Toyota race ace Dennis Aase is a buddy of Joe’s and provided us with some of his crew to change tires in the August desert heat – much appreciated. For the first test runs I used the Z06’s standard Goodyear F1 tire. My best time was 1m 30.6sec lap on my fourth hot lap. I then fitted Goodyear’s DOT-approved “S” compound version of the F1 and we ran 1m 28.3sec lap on the third hot lap, just 1.7sec slower than the Suzuki and 5.9sec quicker than Motorcyclist’s time for the Corvette.
Incidentally, we used the “S” compound Goodyear F1 to compliment the Motorcyclist test, as the magazine had used an “S” compound Michelin on the Suzuki for their fastest laps. Motorcyclist also used Pi Research data to overlay the bike time with the car time and according to the times the car looked slow everywhere. With my lap time for the Corvette reasonably close to the Suzuki, and the acknowledging the superiority of the bike on the straights, I think the car would probably actually show quicker than the bike through most of the corners.
In the end we achieved our objective, which was to satisfy ourselves that the Corvette is a much more competitive machine than the article showed – even when compared to the top sports motorcycle in the world.
Finally, I would like to add that I have nothing but respect for Kevin Schwantz. The guy is still, I’m sure, a bullet-fast motorcycle rider and an accomplished car racer. I think he was handicapped in the Corvette for a couple of reasons. Firstly, he used the traction control. Even in Competition mode it can slow you down when getting really serious. Secondly, Motorcyclist put a different manufacturer’s tire on the car; they were not the OE tire and may not have been a good match for the Corvette.
In case you’re interested we have photos and data to confirm what we did at Willow Springs. The Corvette Z06 is an amazing car and deserves a better representation than Motorcyclist gave it. I think the record just needed to be straightened, for Corvette and for the many sports-car enthusiasts who shared with me their strong feelings about the article.

Andy Pilgrim
Corvette fan, motorcycle fan and Corvette C5-R team driver"



Now on a public road with the various bits of road debris and having only the right side of the road, I would say a car would leave a motorcyclist in the dust.