Sportbikes absolutely ripping off-road is a recent trend that I'm 100% for. Whether it's a Hayabusa tackling Hell's Gate or the last time we featured this GSX-R1000 battling a Toyota Land Cruiser for off-road dominance. Spoiler alert: the GSX-R won. Not bad for a bike picked up for a few thousand pounds with a couple of off-road tires thrown on.
So, the folks at Bike World and Carwow came together again to see if they could topple the mighty GSX-R with a more off-road-focused vehicle, in the form of a Polaris RZR. The RZR is driven by a racing driver, Sam, and the bike is ridden by Chris, who's also a motorcycle racer.
So, skill-wise, all things are fairly level. All that was left to see was whether a purpose-built off-road machine could beat a crotch rocket with knobbies around an off-road course.
Matt Wattson from Carwow is the officiator and leads the racers through six challenges, including a variety of time attack courses, a drag race, and a brutal hill climb. The RZR put on a much better show than the Land Cruiser from the previous challenge and got the best of the GSX-R plenty of times. But, in the end, it came down to who was willing to risk more.
With all still to play for, Matt presented two hill climb options to the racers. One was relatively easy, and the other was far more extreme but worth more points, leading Sam to say, "I've walked it, and there's a kicker at the end. It goes up by about another five degrees. The thing is, I know I can bag points in that (small hill climb). But I know, whether I barrel roll down it or don't make it up, it's zero points."
I won't spoil the ending. Watch for yourself to see if the $21,000 RZR can topple the world-beating, parts bin special GSX-R1000. And let us know in the comments what you'd like to see this GSX-R tackle next.
