Cal Rayborn won 11 AMA nationals during his seven-year professional racing career. Rayborn’s skill become known to the world when he rode a Harley-Davidson XR750 in the 1972 Transatlantic Match Races and won three of the six races to tie as top scorer in the series. Remarkably Cal Rayborn raced with Harley-Davidson for his entire career.

Calvin Rayborn II was born on February 20, 1940, and raised in San Diego. Rayborn’s prime years came in 1968 and 1969, on the factory Harley-Davidson team and with back-to-back Daytona wins in 1968 and ’69. In 1968 he became the first rider to average over 100 mph during the 200-miler.

In 1970 Cal piloted a Harley-Davidson Sportster-based streamliner to a new American and International record of 265.492 mph.

It was in the spring of 1972 when Rayborn turned in perhaps his most famous performance. Against the wishes of the factory, Rayborn accepted an invitation to the Transatlantic Match Races in England. With the factory refusing to back him, Rayborn rode an old iron-cylinder XR racer owned by Harley-Davidson employee Walt Faulk. It was Rayborn’s first appearance in England. Rayborn went out and won three of the six rounds and tied Brit Ray Pickrell as the top scorer.

At the end of 1973, he made the decision to leave Harley-Davidson and accept an offer to race for Suzuki. Tragically, in December of 1973, at just 33 years of age, he died in a club event in New Zealand when the bike he was riding seized and threw him into a wall at well over 100 mph. His untimely death shocked the motorcycling world. ironically he was riding the late Geoff Perry's Suzuki. Geoff Perry had recently been lost in a Pan Am plane crash in the Pacific.

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