1972 Harley-Davidson XRTT 750 Road Racer Replica

Frame no. 1C11004L4

Previewing in Bedford Hills, New York by appointment. Please contact [email protected] for scheduling.

Harley-Davidson's XRTT will always hold a high place in American motorcycle history, remembered as the motorcycle that brazenly informed the rest of the world that Yanks could roadrace. That it happens to be one of the most handsome competition bikes ever certainly doesn't hurt.

The XRTT's distinctive shape burst onto the world stage in the spring of 1972 when team rider Cal Rayborn accepted an invitation to ride in the Trans-Atlantic Match Race series, a yearly six-race tilt on the UK's short circuits that had America's top racers, primarily dirt-trackers, lined up against England's best pavement artists. Nobody gave the Americans much of a chance, and even the Harley-Davidson factory wasn't crazy about Rayborn's participation. This was before the all-alloy version of the XR-750 V-twin was ready for prime time, so Rayborn went into battle with the old iron-barrel XR, an engine that ran so hot it was nicknamed the "Waffle Iron." Cool English weather helped keep the tired motor together, though, and Rayborn put in masterful performances on tracks so unfamiliar to him that he only knew their layouts from hastily drawn diagrams on the back of cocktail napkins. Slack-jawed Brit crowds numbering as high as 70,000 saw Rayborn set lap records and take the checkered flag in three of the six contests, tying for top scorer of the series. In the coming decades Americans would come to dominate international roadracing, but it was Cal Rayborn in 1972 on an aging Harley-Davidson who first served notice.

The XRTT was a much better machine with the redesigned alloy XR-750 in its engine bay, and Rayborn gave Harley-Davidson its last-ever AMA Grand National roadrace win at Laguna Seca Raceway later that year, but the bike's days were numbered. Multi-cylinder Japanese two-strokes would come to rule American roadracing, relegating the XR-750 engine to dirt tracks where it became – and still is – almost unbeatable.

Factory XRTTs are such rare and special machines that racing one at the limit is to put an irreplaceable piece of history at risk of destruction. So what is one to do if they wish to truly race an XRTT? Why build one of course. This bike is one of three dead-on XRTT 750 Road Racer Replicas built by Keith Campbell's Hourglass Racing. Built from parts bought, bartered, and fabricated, it was completed to be an out-and-out track monster. Racing on tracks across the country in AHRMA and WERA races with legends such as Tim Joyce and AMA National Champion and Hall of Famer Jay Springsteen in the saddle, as well as parade laps with Mert Lawwill, Mark Brelsford, and Chris Carr riding. In 2004 at Daytona with Springsteen at the helm, the bike came in first place at the AHRMA races there. The XR750 engine presently in the bike is a crate motor bought new from Harley and built by XR specialist Carl Patrick of Ohio and it is reported to have done practice sessions only, no racing.

Acquired by the present owner directly from Hourglass Racing in December of 2014, the bike has been on static display since being purchased. A bike with plenty of track potential and a welcome entrant at numerous events such as the Barber Vintage Weekend, recommissioning is recommended prior to suiting up in your leathers and attacking the competition.