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Sportbike motorcycle drag racing involves racing motorcycles, often imported from Japan. Many sportbikes such as the Suzuki Hayabusa, the Kawasaki ZX-14, or the BMW S1000RR can perform a 1/4-mile drag race in the 9-second range with little to no modifications. 1/8th-mile racing is also popular in some parts of the country.
The largest drag racing organization is the NHRA, which has over a hundred different tracks where motorcycles can be raced in seven different divisions across the country.
AMA Dragbike is an eight race series that travels all over the county with 3 races in Georgia and a race in each of the following states: Tennessee, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. This is the most popular racing series with motorcycles, some of which travel over 250 mph in a quarter mile race. There are five racing classes dedicated to the sportbike drag racing. Some of these classes feature a bracket racing format while others are heads up racing classes where the first racer to the finish line wins. Most fans feel that the most exciting class to watch is the Pro Street class, where sportbikes can reach over 200 mph in the quarter mile.
The MiRock racing series is an all motorcycle drag racing series run at Rockingham Dragway in Rockingham, North Carolina and Maryland International Raceway in Budds Creek, Maryland. This series runs eight races a year between these two tracks. Their main focus is on sportbike motorcycle drag racing and they have eight different racing classes available by racers with the proper equipment.
The most basic racing class is the bracket racing class, Street ET. Each motorcycle in this class must have a street tire and feature no wheelie bars. Some of these bikes have minor modifications such as having been lowered or featuring an air shifter to change gears. Each rider submits a "dial in" time before the race (the predicted time he/she will run), and the racer running the closest to their dial in and getting to the finish line first without running under their dial in wins. Reaction time is important, especially the closer a racer gets to the finals. Bracket racing is a relatively inexpensive and easy way to get into drag racing a sportbike. "This is a great class to come start in and once was the stomping grounds for many racing of the “Pro” riders today" (Series Information).
Another popular classes is "Pro Street", which features some bikes as fast as the upper six-second range, street tire motorcycles with no wheelie-bars traveling down the track at over 200 mph. "The Pro Street class is a professional heads-up class that contests the ultimate in street-legal motorcycles" (Series Information). These bikes appear similar to ordinary streetbike, but have a vast array of performance-enhancing products, turbo or nitrous oxide for example. The Pro Street motorcycles are often just as fast as a pro stock motorcycle but resemble more of a street appearance with working headlights and taillights along with street tires.
Drag racing is a type of motor racing in which automobiles or motorcycles compete, usually two at a time, to be first to cross a set finish line. The race follows a short, straight course from a standing start over a measured distance, most commonly 1⁄4 mi, with a shorter, 1,000 ft distance becoming increasingly popular, as it has become the standard for Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars, where some major bracket races and other sanctioning bodies have adopted it as the standard. The 1⁄8 mi is also popular in some circles. Electronic timing and speed sensing systems have been used to record race results since the 1960s.
Supermoto is a form of motorcycle racing held on race tracks that alternate between three kinds of track surfaces: the hard packed dirt of flat track, the irregular jumps and obstacles of motocross, and the paved tarmac of road racing. Supermoto was originally conceived by Gavin Trippe in 1979 as a segment of the TV show Wide World of Sports. It was something like an all-star game, in which the best riders from the three separate genres of motorcycle racing could temporarily leave their normal race class to come together and compete for the title of best all around racer. Today supermoto is a distinct genre of its own and riders in the other classes do not routinely cross over into supermoto.
The Suzuki GSX1300R Hayabusa is a sports motorcycle made by Suzuki since 1999. It immediately won acclaim as the world's fastest production motorcycle, with a top speed of 303 to 312 km/h.
AMA Superbike Championship is an American motorcycle racing series that has been run every year beginning in 1976. For most of its existence it has been considered the premier motorcycle road racing series in the United States. It is sanctioned by the AMA American Motorcyclist Association since its inception, and the promotion of the series has been licensed to several organizations over the years. Since 2015 the series has been run and promoted by MotoAmerica, who also manage several other AMA professional road racing championships, including the popular 600cc Supersport class.
Ice racing is a form of racing that uses cars, motorcycles, snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, or other motorized vehicles. Ice racing takes place on frozen lakes or rivers, or on groomed frozen lots. As cold weather is a requirement for natural ice, it is usually found at higher latitudes in Canada, the northern United States, and in northern Europe, although limited indoor events are held in warmer climates, typically on ice hockey rinks. Tracks in North America vary from 1/4 mile to several mile-long circuits.
Street racing is a typically unsanctioned and often illegal form of auto racing that occurs on a public road. Racing in the streets is considered an ancient hazard, as horse racing occurred on streets for centuries, and street racing in automobiles is likely as old as the automobile itself. It became especially prevalent during the heyday of hot rodding (1960s), muscle cars, Japanese imports (1990s) and sports cars (2000s). Since then, it continues to be both popular and hazardous, with deaths of bystanders, passengers, and drivers occurring every year. In the United States, modern street racing traces its roots back to Woodward Avenue, Michigan, in the 1960s when the three main Detroit-based American car companies were producing high-powered performance cars. Since a private racing venue was not always available, street races would be held illegally on public roads.
Motorcycle drag racing involves two participants lining up at a dragstrip with a signaled starting line. Upon the starting signal, the riders accelerate down a 1⁄4 mile (0.40 km) or 1⁄8 mile (0.20 km) long, two lane, straight paved track where their elapsed time and terminal speed are recorded. The rider to reach the finish line first is the winner. The best-known form of motorcycle drag racing is the Pro Stock Bike category, although several other categories exist, including Top Fuel and Pro Street.
A sports motorcycle, sports bike, or sport bike is a motorcycle designed and optimized for speed, acceleration, braking, and cornering on asphalt concrete race tracks and roads. They are mainly designed for performance at the expense of comfort, fuel economy, safety, noise reduction and storage in comparison with other motorcycles.
The Kawasaki Ninja 500R is a sport bike with a 498 cc (30.4 cu in) parallel-twin engine, part of the Ninja series of motorcycles manufactured by Kawasaki from 1987 to 2009, with a partial redesign in 1994. Although the motorcycle has a sporty appearance, it offers a more standard, upright riding position with greater comfort and versatility. It provides a combination of performance and low operating costs, which has made it a favorite as a first motorcycle with new riders and popular with experienced riders on a budget. 2009 was the last model year for the Ninja 500.
The VF1000 is a range of motorcycles produced by Honda from 1984 to 1988. The VF1000 is named after its V-4 998 cc (60.9 cu in) double overhead cam 16-valve engine. There were three main models in the VF1000 range, the VF1000F, the VF1000R and the VF1000F2.
The Daytona 200 is an annual motorcycle road racing competition held in early spring at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. The 200-mile (320 km) race was founded in 1937 when it was sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA). The original course used the beach itself before moving to a paved closed circuit in 1961. The Daytona 200 reached its zenith of worldwide popularity in the 1970s when the race attracted the largest crowds of any AMA race along with some of the top rated international motorcycle racers. The race is currently promoted by MotoAmerica and run in their middleweight Supersport Class. The race is typically held in early March.
The Kawasaki triples were a range of 250 to 750 cc motorcycles made by Kawasaki from 1968 to 1980. The engines were air-cooled, three-cylinder, piston-controlled inlet port two-strokes with two exhaust pipes exiting on the right side of the bike, and one on the left. It was the first production street motorcycle with capacitor discharge ignition (CDI). Right from the first triple model, the 1968 Mach III H1 500 cc, it was a sales success that gained a reputation for almost unmatched acceleration as well as an air of danger for inexperienced riders trying to cope with the bike's increased power to weight ratio over any previously available stock motorcycles.
The motorcycle sport of racing includes motorcycle road racing and off-road racing, both either on circuits or open courses, and track racing. Other categories include hill climbs, drag racing and land speed record trials.
Streetbike freestyle is a motorsport which involves wheelie, stoppie, acrobatics, burnout and drifting. Motorcycles are modified to do multiple tricks
The Championship Cup Series (CCS) is an American motorcycle racing sanctioning body. The American Sportbike Racing Association LLC (ASRA) is the parent company of CCS.
Elena Myers Court is an American professional motorcycle racer. She made history in 2010 as the first female to win an AMA Pro Racing sprint road race. She is also the first woman to win a professional motorsports race of any kind at Daytona International Speedway, on March 17, 2012.
The Kawasaki H1 Mach III was a two-stroke 500 cc sport bike made by Kawasaki from 1969 through to 1975.
American Flat Track is an American motorcycle racing series. The racing series, founded and sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) in 1954, originally encompassed five distinct forms of competitions including mile dirt track races, half-mile, short-track, TT steeplechase and road races. The championship was the premier motorcycle racing series in the United States from the 1950s up until the late 1970s.
Forced induction in motorcycles is the application of forced induction to a motorcycle engine. Special automotive engineering and human factor considerations exist for the application of forced induction with motorcycles compared to other forms of motorized transportation.
The Kawasaki Ninja H2 is a supercharged four-stroke supersport-class motorcycle in the Ninja sports bike series manufactured by Kawasaki, featuring a variable-speed centrifugal supercharger.