Bike Vs. Truck - Dirt Rider Magazine

Is your bike better than your truck? This question is going to light some fires, especially here in the office where we partnered up with our sister magazine, and I use the term politely, Off-Road Magazine to dissect the ins and outs of a serious off-road race truck compared to a solid off-road bike. Helping out for this story was the late Jeff "Ox" Kargola, who was tragically taken from this life way too soon just a few weeks after helping us with this story. We utilized his JCR Honda CRF450X, fresh off a San Felipe 250 victory, and his SuperLite Championship truck, where the following weekend Ox took his first victory in the packed class.We decided on the short-course race truck and the Baja racing bike to highlight each machine's highest reasonable performance while at the same time being able to race them against each other for some sort of a comparison. Sure, the scope of dirt bikes spans a wide range as well as the duty call of trucks, and we'll get into that, but we're looking to see which is a better ride at a high performance level.How close were they? Exactly the same, if we use Ox as the driver/rider on his own bike and in his own truck. His time on both vehicles around the Glen Helen Raceway LOORS track was 53.1 seconds. If you use another human who is better at motorcycles and mildly talented in a truck, namely me, the times swing drastically in favor of the bike. I posted a 53.2-second time on the bike but was edging over a minute in my limited time piloting the truck. And I can pick out plenty of people who could easily drive the truck around the track faster than they could ride a bike, because there are a lot of people who can't ride a bike at all. Almost everyone can drive a truck, but racing on four wheels is a whole other deal.When you run down the spec sheet, the differences are drastic, starting with the price. Even the initial sticker shock of a Baja-winning bike is small when compared to the least expensive of the trucks. Race trucks these days share little in common with their street-going counterparts beyond the fact that they have a motor and four wheels. And we dirt bike riders sometimes take for granted how advanced the bikes we buy are and how truly close they are to the top-flight race machines, at a price that is definitely within reach.One could say it takes a lot more skill to ride a motorcycle than it does to drive a truck, but I'm going to point out some facts. It takes more time to learn to ride a bike to an average level than it would to drive a truck, and a lot more people are familiar with the controls in the truck since most people have driven a stick-shift vehicle at some time or another. But to be able to drive or ride the vehicles to a high level, that is a tough one. The motorcycle allows the rider a lot more input, and for sure brute strength can also aid your motorcycle riding. But finesse is the key to making the truck go round. No matter how strong you are, you can put all the muscle in the world into driving and it's not going to do you any good at all. I was trying to tear myself from the safety belts and lean into the turns and shift my weight, as if it really mattered, only making myself tired in the process. A lot of driving the truck is having the feel for traction and understanding the angle the truck is pointing and how it will react to the bumps and jumps. Knowing if you are sliding or moving forward is also important. Driving is all done with throttle and power steering inputs and can be very subtle if you know what you're doing. All while the truck is raging in violence. Do it wrong and you can end up flipping around like a remote control car, except you are inside for the ride and it isn't going to be cheap to fix. But look on the bright side: You have a rollcage around you, and these kinds of mistakes produce a lot less physical hurt.Speaking about what it feels like, there is an incredible thrill to being strapped into a race truck. And strapped in isn't far from the truth, with a true five-point harness literally locking you into the seat. The driver helmets are equipped with a HANS device which really limits your head's range of motion and makes the mirrors and the use of a spotter with radio communication while racing very important. The SuperLite class is like the 125 class of the truck racing series, meant for younger drivers and as more of an entry-level class before moving up to the much more powerful Pro 4 and Pro 2 classes. It has a four-speed manual transmission in a classic H-pattern; some drivers say the hardest part of racing the class (besides the typical slam-and-bam) is making the shifts. But the truck is small, light and has plenty of suspension.Watching Ox drive the truck showed flow and speed. Turns were set up for early, and power was constant even if he was a little hard on the rev-limiter according to Mike Emmerson, who is also one hell of a driver, the guy in the truck for these photos and the program administrator for the SuperLite Championship. But what racer isn't always pushing for more power, whether a throttle at the stops or a pedal to the floor. Kargola was just that--a multitalented racer who was just as solid behind the wheel as he was behind the bar. What's more, Ox could whip and flip a dirt bike with as much ease as he could drift a truck or blitz a sand wash on his CRF, and the fact that he was competitive as a truck racer, an off-road motorcycle racer and a freestyle rider shows just how talented he truly was.But the power-to-weight advantage between the bike and truck just can't be ignored, even if the truck has a lot more footprint on the ground. It is putting a lot more weight and therefore traction onto that footprint. But getting that truck moving off the line and out of slower turns is where the bike has its biggest advantage. Surprisingly the braking performance of each seemed very similar; the weight of the bike and the traction patch of the truck being each vehicle's strong point. We had planned to do a 0 to 50 to 0 test but did not have the clear space to conduct it. Our gut instinct says the bike would have won due to the acceleration portion of the experiment.Where the truck really starts to shine is in the higher-speed sliding turns that are so impressive to watch a good driver go through. Here the truck lifts the inside front and almost rocks back onto the outside rear wheel putting full power to the ground and nearly cutting a line around a turn. It is sliding for sure but so hooked up at the same time. Also, the ability for the truck to slam into bumps, without punishing the driver, was pretty amazing. You could jump it just as high and just as far, and it was just as comfortable as doing it on a bike. Don't even think of trying this with your street truck.

Here at Dirt Rider we were pretty blown away with the performance of the SuperLite truck, and this isn't even the big-boy class of truck racing. When you look at other races, like Baja where bikes and trucks go head to head, the trucks are getting closer and closer to the speed of the bikes, and in the rougher races the top trucks are beating the bikes pretty easily now. With close to four feet of suspension travel and in excess of 700 horsepower, as long as the course isn't tight and twisty, the bumps don't even slow the trucks down. And the stuff that scares you silly or will cause a crash on the bike, the truck drivers just hammer the gas pedal and let the suspension do the work. The biggest jolt you'll get in a top-flight truck is the thrust back into the seat when the tires grab traction. The rest of the time it's like being on pillows.Which is better? Well, it all depends on how much money you have and how much room you need to put your sponsors' logos on the side of the vehicle. Which, by the way, are very interrelated. Seems that every dirt bike racer I know wants to drive a truck; the safety of the cage and the ability to be competitive long after your days on the bike are behind you plays to the racer in all of us. But there is nothing like the rush, thrill and control you have over your motorcycle, all for a price and performance level that is hard to beat.