After being delayed by rain, motorcycle racing returns to Mobile International Speedway Saturday night. Photo courtesy Mobile International Speedway
At 53, Van Rayburn has spent the better part of his life aboard a motorcycle.
He has done it, and done it well, for 38 years — six championships in the 1980s prove that. Still, Rayburn’s passion also has been his penance.
He gets out of bed each morning, barely able to straighten out both knees. He has difficulties lifting his right arm above his head. Every tendon, muscle, chunk of cartilage — you name it — aches.
So it’s funny to hear Rayburn utter these words: “I’ve been lucky.”
His luck continues next Saturday, Aug. 6, as the Motorcycles make their much-anticipated, and once-delayed, return to Mobile International Speedway in Irvington, AL, a Rick Crawford Performance Track.
It’s the first time Rayburn, a Mobile native, and the Motorcycles have raced at MIS since 2009. A field of approximately 20 bikes from flat-trackers to road racers will compete on the oval and also try to set a new track record during qualifying, a feat that Rayburn believes is overdue.
“It’s good we’re finally qualifying after so many years,” said Rayburn, who first raced at his home track in 1976. “I love it.”
The Motorcycles won’t be the only ones competing Aug. 6. The local divisions continue their seasons in a major way with the Richest “Stockcar” Payday in the Speedway’s 48-year history.
The Bob’s Speed Shop Sportsmen will battle for $2,200 in the 50-lap American Environmental Sportsman Challenge. Meanwhile, the Island Motors II Bombers will vie for a possible, winner-take-all $1,500. The Aug. 6 festivities are a make-up from July 16 when rain washed the evening away.
While the drivers will battle for some extra money, you get to keep a little lagniappe in your pockets, too. Admission is just $10 for adults, $5 for military and policemen, $3 for children (6-11) and 5-and-under are free when accompanied by adult.
Pit passes are $25; everyone under 19 must have a signed parental consent form. The pit gate opens at 3 p.m. next Saturday; grandstands at 5 p.m. Racing begins promptly at 8 p.m.
That’s when everybody is sure to turn their undivided attentions on the motorcyclists, who will be coming from all over the southeast.
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And they will be protected. The riders come decked out in leather suits that are equipped with hard-plastic pads for the shoulders, knees, hips. Steel shoes are strapped over their boots to help them slide on the ground as they go into the corners.
“You dress for the crash, not the ride,” Rayburn deadpanned.
And the ride nearly is indescribable.
“It’s kinda like diving off the high dive,” said Davo Majzun, who has been riding professionally for two years. “The first time, you’re scared as hell. The next time, you’re good to go and can’t wait to get back up on it and do it again.”
This from a former elementary school teacher in Milton, Fla. Majzun’s family runs Turn One Performance, a shop that has specialized in motorcycle parts for the last three decades.
Majzun will have some family competition Aug. 6. John Cohorn, Majzun’s uncle, will race, too. The last time kin went boot to boot with each other last fall at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla., Cohorn beat Majzun on the last lap coming out of the final turn.
“I was aggravated,” said Majzun, who regularly races 450 Hondas in Super Moto. “I want to beat (Cohorn) more than anybody.”
Rayburn has been beating fellow drivers for almost 40 years now. In addition to all the titles he won in the 1980s, Rayburn has been crowned the senior champion for the American Historic Motorcycle Racing Association the last three years.
He already has won twice this year on the American Motorcyclist Association tour.
“I got away from it a while,” Rayburn said. “I got into stock cars, but motorcycles are what I like to do.
“It’s hard to explain to somebody that has never done it. To run off the corner at 100 mph and pitch the bike sideways and you’re sliding into the turns and you roll the gas back on as you come off the corner, it’s a natural high.”
Experiencing that feeling certainly makes up for all the physical pain Rayburn has had to endure.
For more information on Saturday’s event, visit www.mobilespeedway.net.
