CAL RAYBORN XRTT FACTORY ROADRACER
Many long time students of motorcycle racing consider Cal Rayborn to be one of the best roadracers who ever lived. Cal and his
Harley performed magic against some of the best riders in the world
despite the fact that those riders often had more powerful bikes.
Webster’s uses the words: strength, courage, nobility, ideal and model
to define the word “Hero”. While many top racers show some of those
qualities, it is the rare individual that shows them all. For many of us
Cal was a true hero.
Cal raced 18 Factory bikes during his tenure at Harley Davidson
including 6 XRTT’s. We are honored to represent his last and best XRTT.
Harley gave the bike to Dick O’Brien who managed the company’s racing
team for a long time. Dick and Cal were very close. The bike is still
owned by Dick’s daughter, Patty and is fully documented. The machine has
a special frame made for Cal and the fir st
factory 5 speed. Very few complete factory racing machines ever leave
factory control one piece. Most of the team bikes were destroyed
after Dick retired.
I inspected the machine and found the shop rags still glued to the
footrests and controls so Cal could control the bike in the event that
it “soiled itself” during battle. It has the Goodyear’s and even the
burn in the fairing from the pipes that can be seen in the photo that
Don Emde gave us of Cal racing it for the last time at Ontario Speedway
in 1973.
This will be a very rare opportunity to own one of the most famous
factory racing machines of our time.
Jerry Wood
since 12/19/05 |
