A BMW S 1000 RR, the double championship-winning supersports bike, features in a high-octane superbike vs supercar race on this week’s episode of the hugely popular BBC Top Gear show.
Steve Brogan, the 2010 Mirror.co.uk BSB-EVO champion, will be racing the 999cc, 193bhp stock road bike around the legendary Top Gear test track. He’s up against a £150,000 Ariel Atom V8 – a 475bhp, 550kg supercar powered by two 1300cc motorcycle engines which have been bored out and turned into a V8.
Brogan, who dominated the BSB-EVO class on a race spec BMW, takes on the supercar which costs more then ten times as much as the stock BMW S 1000 RR.
In a neck-and-neck race around the famous circuit, viewers of Sunday night’s show will get to see whether the bike or car, at the hands of a mystery driver, crosses the finishing line first!
Anyone wanting to know the result will have to tune into the show on BBC2 on Sunday 23 January at 8pm.
Steve Brogan said: “I had a lot of fun filming with Top Gear. I had a few laps in a car then it was out on the stock S 1000 RR. We got some good weather when we filmed it in October and the track was nice and dry so I could push hard. I turned the traction control off as I wanted to use some wheelspin in the corners.
“The car was very quick – and had more than double the horsepower of the bike. But the power to weight ratio was in my favour, so it was a fair race. I rode hard, it was very close! You’ll have to watch to see who came out on top though.”
The power to weight ratio is probably only barely in his favour. Assuming the bmw weighs 175kg, bike to car is 1.1bhp/kg vs 0.86bhp/kg, but factor in a 70kg rider/driver and they are practically identical – bike 0.78bhp/kg to car 0.77bhp/kg.