Least Likely Legend
LEAST LIKELY LEGEND
"Calvin and his growling Harley-Davidson comprised a point of focus that gave off glittering sparks of heat and light." —Cook Neilson, Cycle magazine, upon the death of Calvin Rayborn
ALLAN GIRDLER
BECAUSE THIS IS A STORY OF Yanks in England. we can use Charles Dickens, of whom nobody was ever more English, and say that this motorcycle and the legend it created came at the best of times in the worst of times.
Worst first, Early in 1970, in response to a rule change that was long overdue and bitterly fought out, Harley-Davidson introduced a new racebike. It was called the XR-750, it was based on the racing version of the XL Sportster...and it was a disaster.
The XR-750 had heads and barrels of cheap and practical cast iron, which worked fine on the street and not that badly in the racing XLR. which was called on to produce full power only in short bursts.
AMA nationals in those days were run on dirt and paved tracks, and the high point was the Daytona 200. In 1970. the Harleys blew up, one after the other, left and right. Tuned to produce competitive power, which they just barely managed to do, the iron engines literally self-destructed. They made more heat than they could handle. In 1970. Gene Romero won the had reckoned with: I) The races would be held in England, a cold climate; 2) the races would be short, hardly more than sprints; 3) Rayborn was a quick study, able to learn circuits in a handful of laps.
These factors were overlooked by most people because they hadn’t thought them out. The iron XR had no problem with making power competitive to the English production-based machines, it was that the XR melted itself in doing so. Handling was at least on par, and Rayborn’s riding was literally in a class by itself.
No point in building suspense 23 years after the fact: Cal Rayborn smoked ’em.
The races were run at three tracks-six races in all. Rayborn won three, came in second on the others and twice set lap records.
But that doesn’t tell the full story.
Rayborn got the holeshot at the start of the first heat of the first race, led five laps and was edged by Ray Pickrell, Triumph’s best. Cal’s new leathers had been too tight and his arms cramped. That fixed, he led the second heat flag to flag.
The English may not have invented sportsmanship, but they know how it's done. Quoting writer Sam Moses, who was there, “When he took his victory lap, they went wild cheering and clapping and waving handkerchiefs, some even running onto the track in excitement.”
And so it went for the series, with his second second because the tire pressure wasn’t right, and with Cal riding as fast and for as few laps as he could, while between heats, between races, all night if he had to. Faulk rebuilt and tested and beefed up and pared down-whatever it took to keep the fragile engine from doing itself in.
Urn, better make that, did what he could do.
Remember the poem about the wonderful sleigh, the one that lasted 100 years to the day? Ever wonder what if it hadn’t made it. not quite?
Going into the final meeting, two races at Oulton Park, Rayborn told Moses he'd taken just seven practice laps, and that if it wouldn’t have disappointed the crowd at Mallory Park, he'd have skipped the victory lap there.
“The fuse on that engine was getting shorter and shorter and I wasn't taking any chances,” he said afterwards.
Rayborn tucked in behind Pickrell for most of the race, just as he and Faulk had planned weeks before, then two laps before the end. Cal moved over and pulled away.
In the last race of the series, the iron XR went soft and lost 500 rpm two laps from the finish. This time it was Pickrell's move. He won by a couple of bikelengths.
The 1972 Match Race Series was pretty much the high point, surely for the iron XR and nearly as much for Calvin. The alloy XR wasn't homologated in time for the 1972 Daytona 200, although Rayborn won Indianapolis and Laguna Seca roadrace nationals with the new XRTT.
A new handwriting was on the wall. Yamaha doubled up its 350 two-stroke Twin and did what the old hands, Harley and the English factories, had assumed nobody would ever do, produced 200 actual, real, for-racing-only motorcycles, and the two-stroke Multis closed the door on productionbased four-stroke Twins, if not forever, then at least until the present.
So, while the Harleys did okay on the dirt in 1973, Kenny Roberts and Yamaha took the national title and Calvin Rayborn went winless.
For his off-season break, he went to Australia to race cars, and somebody offered a ride on a Suzuki in New Zealand. It was not a major race, but Cal always liked a challenge. On December 29. 1973. the Suzuki went off the track and Calvin Rayborn was killed. He left a wife and small kids, one of whom. Calvin Rayborn III, is now a professional racer, riding for Don Vesco, who says the kid is as good as he is underrated. He left a load of trophies in the Andres’ barn, and a mist in the eyes of those who saw him do his magic.
But the real trophy is what you see here. The matchracing XRTT was shipped home just as it was raced, and vent back into Walt Faulk's garage. Faulk is a good and loyal man and somehow never got around to putting in the big engine and racing the Sportsman class.
Then Harley-Davidson, in the form of management if not the racing team, got involved with history. The AMA was planning to establish a motorcycle museum and was accepting donations. One day Faulk got a phone call. Would he return the motorcycle, please, no hurry, any time tomorrow would be fine.
Of course, he said of course and in due time there was a ceremony, in which the AMA accepted the motorcycle from H-D. The record doesn’t reflect if the guys who didn’t want Cal to go to England where the guys who took part in the ceremony, but those of us who are romantics would like to think that was so.
In any case, there the motorcycle rests, and if Calvin Rayborn was the best rider to never win the national championship, and if the iron XR-750 was a makeshift mistake, then it’s just as true that for one frame of time, the Match Race Series of 1972, man and machine were the best and the brightest. □
