Bonneville 1970. As the scraped and battered Harley-Davidson streamliner is prepared for its next run, Race Manager Dick O’Brien and Cal Rayborn confer in the background. It wasn’t easy, but the World Record finally came. Photo from Don Emde Collection. ur big event to report this month is the recent International Motorcycle Speed Trials by BUB, held at the world famous Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. Bonneville is one of those magic places that will always hold a special place in the motorsports history books. Virtually everything that ever goes on at Bonneville is well recorded and those who make their mark there are long remembered.      When I was growing up in San Diego, I had two friends who definitely made some history there. In 1970, Cal Rayborn was arguably the best overall motorcycle racer in the United States, certainly the best roadracer. So it was no surprise that the Harley-Davidson factory asked Rayborn to pilot the Harley-powered streamliner built by Denis Manning in their collective goal of breaking the motorcycle land speed record. The existing record at the time of 251 miles per hour was coincidentally held by Don Vesco, another San Diego area resident and one of Cal’s oldest friends. The two had even gone to high school together.      Anyone who has seen the movie “On Any Sunday” will recall the humorous scenes of Cal squeezing into the tight cockpit of the streamliner and his on-the-spot lessons of learning how to be a streamliner pilot, something he has never done before. Even after numerous incidents that ranged from minor tip-overs to high speed incidents that included a few “barrel rolls,” Cal still managed to set a new world record of 265 miles an hour. A man that I knew as fearless did not get much joy from his Bonneville experience and never went back there again.      Don Vesco came from a family of motorsports enthusiasts who were constantly trying to figure out how to make cars and motorcycles go faster. Don grew up to be a world-class motorcycle roadracer, but most people remember him for his Bonneville accomplishments. Unlike Rayborn, Vesco loved everything about Bonneville and went there every chance he had.      After Rayborn broke Vesco’s record, Don went to work on a new Yamaha-powered streamliner and in 1974 got the record back with a speed of 281 mph. In 1975 he became the first motorcyclist to go over 300 with a new record of 303 miles per hour.      In his later years, Don modified his motorcycle streamliner into a four-wheeler and installed a turbine-powered motor and set a world land speed record for wheel-driven vehicles at 458.44 mph. That record still stands today, bested only by jet powered vehicles that run at the speed of sound. We lost Cal in a racing crash in 1973 and Don died in 2005 from Prostate Cancer. I treasure my relationships with them both and mention of Bonneville always makes me recall their place in its history.

Parts Magazine
Volume 14 #11

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