Production vs racing

I am curious as to how much faster a superbike or formula bike or whatever how much faster it is than its production counterpart.  I know there have been articles written on this but when I want to find it to prove some of the points to a friend, I can never find them.  I also know that there was an article written in one of my old magazines but I cant find that neither.  If anyone reading this can point me in the right direction, please respond... THANK YOU in advance!

~Wil

or email me at rene.wilson@gmail.com  

much, much faster  

I can give you an example, Mat Mladin gets around Barber Motorsports Park in 1:25:00 and the fast guys in Advansed can get it done in 1:40 and some change. Of course we all know that mister Mladin is super human but some of the Advansed guys are wera regulars, that just leaves the equipment.  

Well if they can squeeze 140 hp (give/take) out of a CBR 600rr for FX when my 1000rr only make 148 hp I would imagine that the possibilities are endless  

the RC211V (honda motogp bike)

- over 250 hp
- about 300 lbs w/o rider

a late model literbike has

-aprox 150 hp
-400 lbs (?) w/o rider  

You could always compare Super Stock times to Superbike (specifically Arron Yates).  Riders make so much of a difference to how fast a bike goes that comparing advanced riders at a track day to Matt Mladin is relitivly pointless.  The production bikes are down 50hp + or -, and weigh 75lbs more (superbikes are limited to about 350lbs, and I think the liter bikes all weigh about 425lbs in the real world), but their biggest advantages are the suspension and chassis bits.  Basically the spirit of SuperStock is that you could buy a GSX-R1000 and turn it into a SuperStock by putting a full exhaust, Power Commander, swaping out the suspension bits, and dropping wieght by taking all stuff needed for the street off, and putting light weight race fairings on.  Hell most liter bikes out there on the street are nearly SuperSTock bikes.  But these bikes from the get go were close to the Super bike speeds because it's simply hard to control 200+ hp.  And you don't and can't use it all.  There was an article in one mag about a racer who took a stock bike (R1 I think?) and finished top 10 in the Superstock class.  This is no joke, it still had the lisence plate holder on it.  The funny part was they started putting bits on, and actually went backwards in results.  Look in Roadracing world, I think.  I think the last time there was a big differnce between the production and race versions as far as track times was back in the RC45 days.  Although I guess there was a pretty big difference with the street and race versions of the RC51 too.
My 2 cents  

I agree whole heartedly with the above.  My 04' RC51 is no where near what Honda raced in AMA and WSB in 2002.  Swing arm looks the same, decals are the same, but all the parts that really matter, wheels, brakes, suspension,controls, all that is different.  I've spend a lot of dough putting on things like CRG levers and Power Commanders, Titanium exhaust, different rotors, Ohlins suspension blah, blah, blah, and all I've got for it is about a 25 lb. weight loss and a beautiful looking, running, sounding,handling,motorcyle!

But compared to an AMA factory ride.  No way, just look at the latest shots of all the carbon fiber on Team Yamaha's factory race bikes, it'd cost me 3 grand to put that kind of body work on my RC.

Still though, at the end of the day, I've got an awesome machine, that is race inspired.  It doesn't matter which manufacturer you choose, these are great times to be a sportbike consumer.