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circuit in 1965. He was being backed by Leonard Andres, whose son Brad had been an AMA champion of the mid- 1950s. Rayborn was phenomenal on road courses, but while he was a solid dirt-track racer, his skills on the dirt didn't come close to what he could do on pavement. Rayborn won only one dirt-track National in his career. That came on a hard-packed Mile in Livonia, Michigan, in 1971. Still, Rayborn was often a contender on the dirt. He was runner-up to Dick Mann at the Peoria TT in 1969. He finished second to Dave Sehl on the crushed limestone of the Louis- ville (Kentucky) Half-Mile in 1970. He scored podiums on the half mile at Ascot Park (1965), Hous- ton Short Track ('68), and on the Miles at Sedalia, Missouri ('68), Sacramento ('70) and Indianapo- lis ('72). Rayborn's best finishes in the AMA Grand National Champion- ships standings came in 1968 and 1969, when he finished third. "Had there been a road-racing championship back then, Cal would have won it every year," said Emde. "And the funny thing is, everyone remembers him as a road-racing specialist because he was so good at that, but the fact is, he was always up there on the dirt tracks, qualify- ing for the mains and putting in good finishes. But that was in the days when 100 riders were trying to qualify for the main and the competition level was so deep. You had guys like Gene Romero, Dick Mann, Mert Law- will and Gary Nixon, who were so tough." Rayborn's style of racing revo- lutionized the sport in America. Harley-Davidson's head of racing at the time was Dick O'Brien, and it was O'Brien who perhaps knew Rayborn's racing prowess better than anyone. "He was one of the best road racers in the world," O'Brien said. "He had an advantage over anybody—other than maybe Mike Hailwood—on slow corners. Guys could stay with him in sweepers, but when it came to slow turns, Cal could do things with a bike no other rider could. I always wanted to see Hailwood and Rayborn on equal bikes on the same course." With the advent of the 500cc two-stroke road racers, it be- came tougher and tougher for Harley-Davidson to remain com- petitive with its 750cc air-cooled V-twin. Still, even on machinery that was less than competitive, Rayborn won. His road-race Na- tional wins in 1972 at Indianapolis Raceway Park and Laguna Seca Raceway were perhaps two of his greatest achievements. Laguna proved to be Ray- born's last victory. By 1973, it became clear to Rayborn that his future was in the burgeoning sport of road racing. It was also clear that Harley-Davidson would be less and less competitive on the road courses against the rapidly im- proving Japanese machines. At the end of the year, he made the gut-wrenching decision to leave Harley-Davidson and accept an offer to race for Suzuki. Unfortunately, Rayborn would never race in America again. In December of 1973, he died in a club event in New Zealand when the bike he was riding seized and threw him into a guardrail at well over 100 mph. At just 33 years of age, one of America's brightest racing talents was no more. His death sent shock waves throughout the sport. Years later, Rayborn's son, Cal III, became a well-known racer in his own right and was a leading AMA 250 Grand Prix and Supersport rider of the mid-to- late 1980s. Calvin Rayborn II will long be remembered as the rider who gave Harley-Davidson some of its greatest wins in the wan- ing days of the company's AMA Grand National road-racing competition. CN This Archives edition is reprinted from the October 10, 2007, issue of Cycle News. CN has hundreds of past Archives editions in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road. -Editor CN III ARCHIVES P130 Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives