O'Brien
Harley-Davidson's War Eagle
Let the Race begin part
III
The
Last Hurrah
It
was 1968 and my first wife Nancy (who died of cancer in 1994) and myself visited
Dick and his wife Joyce in Milwaukee, WI. Nancy was pregnant with our second
daughter Becky. I just got promoted in the design department of Bendix Launch
Support and was working on the Apollo Space Team. Dick had just moved up, being
now able to rent a house after 11 years. Nancy and I got to meet William and
John Davidson along with Bill Harley. They gave us free box tickets to a
Milwaukee baseball game and a tour of the H-D Capital Drive plant plus the
H-D Butler plant (now called the Capitol Hill plant).That Friday I got to go and
see the Racing Department at Capital Hill. Dick got a secretary, draftsman and
an assistant director who was my old racing buddy Clyde Denzer.
Dick had three full
time union mechanics, his own dyno room in the experiential shop down stairs .He
did finally get a desk behind a partition. With the noise from the dyno's down
stairs and the noise from work shop next door it was hard to talk to each other.
The whole place was one step from a NY sweatshop environment. It was not like
the NASA white room I was use to working in. I had hoped to see the new 1970
Race jobs weather Aermacchi or H-D but Dick did not want to talk about it. This
would be the last time I would see Dick until Daytona 1969.
In 1969, we had just
launched Apollo 9 on 3rd March and I got a break from work to go to Daytona and
work on the factory race bikes. May would be Apollo 10 and Nancy and I had to
get back home. Nancy was secretary for the USAF Base Safety Commander at Cape
Canaveral next to Kennedy Space Centre. When I got to the Daytona International
Speedway Dick and Leonard Andres, the famed H-D dealer from California, were in
the Champion Spark Plug office. Dick waved me in. Leonard had a lot of pull with
the President of H-D, John Davidson, and he was upset with Dick. I asked Dick if
he wanted me to leave room and he said ”no, stay here”. The race bikes were down
10 mph from last year and the mechanics worked on them as if they didn't give a
rip about it, as it was the last year of the KR-750 Flathead anyway. Leonard
next question went right to the point ‘What have you got going for 1970 when
rules change to 750cc OHV or OHC across the board'? My heart dropped out with
the answer. Dick said, "Not A Darn Thing" and before he could finish Leonard
shot back “your kidding there is only 9 months to 1970?”
Dick answered “will
you shut up and let me finish dam it. I told John Davidson in February last year
what I needed and he said NO, the flathead is good enough. Now he tells me I can
downsize the Sportster and use that”. Leonard comes back, saying that darn
Sportster can’t pull sick whore off pee pot. Dick went on to say that if
Cal Rayborn wins the 200 Sunday as he did last year it's over and I mean over.
Even if the new XR-750 OHV is right for dirt track, it will not cut it for road
racing. Harley-Davidson wont put up the money for me to hire the engineers I
need for a major war against the Japs. Dick went on to say it is over for BSA
and Triumph as they are going under and I told our riders that if they want to
stick around and get their buts kicked for next two years until I can build a
new bike for dirt-track they can, and if not, no hard
feelings.
I left the meeting, walked out to track
and, there they were, 50 Jap popcorn two-strokes twin race jobs all over
the paddock area, I felt like going over to the Infield flag pole and lowering
the American Flag to half mast and putting it upside down as a sign of major
distress…
Harley-Davidson's last 200
victory
When
you talk Harley-Davidson road racing, there’s one name that always comes up: Cal
Rayborn, or as Dick would say "The
Great One", and Dick, along with many others including myself, put Cal equal to
Mike (The Bike) Hailwood, Europe's Isle of Man winner and FIM World Champion.
That Daytona Monday evening conversation, when it wasn't wrapped around spooky
doings, was mostly concerned with the surprising speed of the 500cc Suzuki and
the Harley-Davidson's lack of the same. It wasn't like 1968, when the Milwaukee
side-valve Pig Iron were banging through the timing-lights at 150-plus mph.
Freddy Nix made one pass at 147, by hugging the rail for protection against the
wind, but most of his speeds were in the low 140s and so were those of Reiman
and Rayborn who were doing a putt-putt in low 135s.
Ron Grant's Suzuki 500
was the fastest thing on the track Monday, at 147.5mph and second was Yvon
Duhamel's Yamaha 350cc at 146.5 mph. Back at our pits, all hands were working to
keep the bikes running and we were losing ground steadily. The KRTT's were
breaking. Great dirty holes were appearing in pistons and in general everything
that could go wrong was going wrong. My wife spent the day on the beach sunning
and swimming and the factory and I worked on the bikes at the track from 08:00
am till 05:00 pm, then went to dinner. After that it was back to work on the
bikes at Robbinson's H-D shop until one or two in the morning. Thursday was
qualifying times for the 200. Yvon Duhamel flashed around at 150.501mph on his
Yamaha 350 to put himself on pole for $500.00 and a new track record, second
came Bobby Winters on another Yamaha at 149.303mph. Third was Ralph White, again
Yamaha, at 146.818mph, fourth was Ron Grant Suzuki at 146.723mph, fifth was Mike
Duff’s Yamaha at 146.412mph, sixth David Lloyd’s Yamaha at 146.127mph, Ssventh
Rod Gould’s Yamaha at 145.583, eight was our H-D, Cal Rayborn at
144.746mph, ninth was Dick Hammer’s Kawasaki 350 at 144.694mph and rounding out
the first 10 was Ron Pierce’s Yamaha at 144.369mph…
Rain out and a
reprieve for Harley-Davidson
Sunday's
200 rained out and so did my money and Nancy and I had to get back to the Cape
for work. Dick and the factory boys spent the next week trying find out what
went wrong between 1968 and 1969.The rain out would be run the next Sunday. It
was work on bikes then head to the back roads to make speed runs and then out
run the cops and head back to the shop and do it again Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday and then they had to stop as the city, sheriff and the highway
patrol were all looking for those blankety-blank Black, Orange and White pigs
doing 140 + in 55 mph speed zones.
The green flag drops
and the 200-miller is on and riders start dropping out for one reason or another
and guess who was right there to pick up all the days spilled marbles? Cal
Rayborn, that's who!!! Calvin outlasted a few, outran the rest, and won the
200-miller for Harley-Davidson for the second time in as many opportunities. He
did it this time with a bike that was very definitely not the fastest thing
around, and he did it with admirable flash. The rest of the field was Rod
Grant’s Suzuki 2nd place, Mike Duff’s Yamaha 3rd, Mert Lawwill’s
Harley-Davidson 4th, Ron Gould’s Yamaha 5th, Bart Marke’sl Harley-Davidson 6th,
Tom Rockwood’s Yamaha 7th, Peter Kellond’s Yamaha 8th, Gary Nixon’s
Triumph 9th and Dan Haaby’s Harley-Davidson 10th.
Copyright Jesse O"Brien
2005