A few of you gearheads might first ask why a personal watercraft page would be talking about a Kawasaki Ninja H2 SX motorcycle and comparing it to a JetSki Ultra 310R. Well, Chris Cantle, Editor in Chief of Motorcyclist Magazine and along with Zach Bowman, they take these two very different Kawasaki machines and race them. Who will win?
The Kawasaki Ninja H2 SX motorcycle is equipped with a 998cc liquid cooled inline 4-cylinder engine offering 197HP at 11,200RPM, 101 LB-FT of torque at 9,500RPM and weighs 573lbs. wet. The Kawasaki Jet Ski Ultra 310R is equipped with a 1,498cc supercharged and intercooled inline 4-cylinder engine offering 310HP with a maximum boost of 16.8psi. With a curb weight of 1047.4lbs., it is about twice as heavy as the Ninja.
At the start of each course, Chris and Zach both talked about how breathtaking the scenery was. At The Watercraft Journal we tend to be a little bias and would say that Chris’s water ride had the better view but both were spectacular. At the first fuel stop, Zach was able to stay on his bike and fuel up and be back on the road in under a minute and a half. While motorcycles have considerably smaller fuel tanks compared to JetSkis, Chris’s fuel stop took a little but longer – particularly as the fuel station he went to had a computer error and took a while to authorize Chris to start pumping fuel. After 23 minutes, Chris was back in action with the throttle pinned.
The first person to cross the finish line was Zach. He finished with a rough 10 minute lead on board the Kawasaki Ninja H2 SX. If this race happened again and Chris was able to cut his fuel stop in half, the results may have been different. They both concluded that no matter what you ride, riding in Monument Valley and Lake Powell is truly amazing. If you are not able to make it to Utah, try placing a friendly wager with your friend and see who wins. To watch the complete video about the race, click here.
