The 39-year-old Philadelphian has been drag racing motorcycles for 23 years, 15 as a pro. In that time he's posted 118 wins and amassed eight world titles.
Given his expertise, he's the perfect person to say whether Kawasaki USA's new ZZR1400 is a match for the lightning fast Suzuki Hayabusa GSX1300. How does he know? Because he was there when they went head to head.
"We took two stock bikes, totally unmodified," Gadson says. "We picked a day, loaded the same amount of fuel into each bike, same tyres, put identical pressures in them, suspension settings, etc. We also weighed the bikes before we did any runs. They were just a few pounds apart in wet weight.
"I then spent pretty much all day posting runs on the bikes. "The results were consistently faster times for the Kawasaki. I was running between one tenth and 0.5 of a tenth faster, with another 4mph on the terminal speed.
Suspension
"When we lowered the suspension and stretched the swingarms, the ZX14's advantage was close to 2.5 tenths on nearly every run, with around 5mph extra on the terminal speed."
So now you know.
Gadson says that the ZZR1400 was also put through its paces on the dyno (a diagnostic rolling track), proving once again that, in his opinion, it had the edge.
"The standard ZZR1400 makes between 170bhp and 175bhp, depending on the air temperature and the humidity," he says.
Wasn't Gadson just slightly in awe of the mighty Hayabusa?
"Apart from the drag racing a few weeks ago, I haven't ridden the Hayabusa, as I've been a factory Kawasaki rider since 1999. The Suzuki's is a good bike and it's taken time to beat, but we beat it..."
View comments (1 comment 26/10/2006 at 12:21)
