Rockstar Energy athlete Colby Raha added another chapter to the thrilling tales of derring-do on August 2, 2025, when he jumped a stock Harley-Davidson V12, weighing 550 pounds, 205 feet at the Thunderdome in Sturgis, South Carolina, shattering a record that stood for 15 years.
“Anytime anybody risks their life or does something that could be dangerous or life-threatening, their body tells them not to do it,” Raha told NBC Sports before the jump. “There’s no way of getting around the nerves. But some of the legends in the past, or myself, we know how to turn off the fear and go for it. ... Putting the fear aside and being willing to risk it for the reward. The message is to anyone who wants to try and make a living or do something they’re not comfortable doing, taking a risk in life.”
Daredevil feats on motorcycles predate motorcycle racing itself and could arguably date back to couriers in World War I, as brave men on both sides of the trenches risked their lives to deliver critical messages from one point to another. Soon after the conclusion of the war, Pro Motocross was born out of the Scrambles in England, contests designed to identify the best of these motorcycle riders, much like auto racing was created to determine which moonshiners or revenuers had the greatest skill and fastest cars.
Jumping motorcycles is another matter altogether, involving math, geometry, and velocity. In the early days, this involved a lot of trial and error. For Raha, it hasn’t changed all that much. He keeps notes, of course, but the truth of the equation is unknown until he is mid-air.
What does it take to be the greatest motorcycle jumper of all time?
“A lot of experience a lot of guts and a lot of fun — and a lot of broken bones” Raha said.
For motorcycle jumping, the standard-bearer has long been Evel Knievel, and his spirit lived on in Sturgis. Sporting leathers tributing Knievel, Raha gathered a crowd of thousands to see if he could beat Seth Enslow’s record of 183 feet, set in 2010 in Australia.
“He did that on a Harley-Davidson Sportster, but he used dirt bike suspension, so he chopped the frame, made custom modifications. I’m opting out of using more travel and bigger suspension and making modifications. I’m doing it on a stock bike, so although I already hold the record for (a stock bike) distance jump, I’ll be attempting to break the furthest distance jump of all time.”
Raha had some unforeseen complications, and until Saturday morning, there was an open question of how much speed he could generate in the run-up to the ramp.
“We’re having a tough time here in Sturgis with the parking lot we’re provided,” Raha said. “It’s a really short in-run, so it’s really difficult to get up to speed, which makes it not only more risky but difficult — hard to get up to speed. We were up to 1 o’clock last night jumping with the lights on, and we’ll do the same tonight (the night before the jump), so a lot of hard work, but at the end of the day, you still have to set out to do and I gave my word I’m going to go for the world record, so I’m going to go for it whether I’m feeling as ready as I can be or not. I’m still going to hold it wide open and send the 550-pound bike.”
Riding his bike back and forth in the parking lot was like pacing at more than 70 miles per hour. The parking lot was not long enough, so Raha had his team create a makeshift bridge across a drainage ditch, which allowed him to extend his run-in by a few feet plus the width of a dirt road. That also created three different acceleration surfaces that needed to be factored into his mental equations.
To give him a visual confirmation of his jump, a line was painted on the landing ramp at 183 feet. Raha’s first Jump attempt was a little short with his back wheel almost touching the line. His second and third jumps were slightly longer and would have broken Enslow’s record, but Raha had the magic number 200 in mind.
Across the dirt road, over the wooden bridge, and over the asphalt of the parking lot, Raha had a tricky speed target to hit. He also changed his form on the final jump. In the first three jumps, he landed flat, and the nose of his bike dipped down, given the shape of the ramp. On Jump 4, he kept the Harley’s front wheel high — so high in fact, that it looked like he was pulling a wheelie on the landing.
Raha may not have known his exact distance after the fourth jump, but he knew he had cleared the painted line — and more importantly, he knew he was done. Raha pulled to the side of the parking lot and picked up his wife for the ride to the top of the ramp for the celebration.
“Oh my God; I feel like I’ve run a marathon,” Raha said after the jump. “What the heck. What the hell was that, huh? Four jumps; I know we had our math right. There were a lot of sketchy jumps leading into getting this right. My crew said 77. I went 77. We landed perfectly; I executed it perfectly three times in a row, and the last one, I left the throttle on. And this landing is small, going that big, and I landed flat. That was a violent landing. I held on for dear life. I felt like Knievel on that one.
“This is a classic stamp in history: the furthest Harley-Davidson jump of all time. We just pulled it off. A lot of hard work goes into this.”
Mid-speech, Raha turned to listen to another man on the landing ramp: “We just got confirmation. It’s an official world record: 205 feet.”
It was fitting that Knievel was still on Raha’s mind because, in some way, the daredevil from the 1970s was responsible for Raha’s career choice.
Raha began riding and racing dirt bikes at the age of three, which was one way of bonding with his father. They watched videos of Knievel’s jumps, and Raha’s thoughts took flight along with Knievel’s bikes.
“I don’t have a ton of experience jumping a Harley or a V-12 motorcycle,” Raha told NBC Sports. “However, I built a replica setup to what Evel Knievel used at King City for the furthest jump of his career in 1974; he went 130 feet. I come from a construction background. I was a framer, so I was able to build an exact replica landing of what Evel Knievel used and then I build a takeoff ramp to match it. I hosted events on my property, open to the public to show up and watch, and I was able to get my feet wet in the industry, the daredevil world of jumping Harleys. It was just kind of a test for me and I was able to learn a lot from those jumps: that my landing ramp was too steep or my takeoff ramp was too mellow. On this one, I’m taking what I learned — math, geometry, miles per hour, speed and things — and I’m bringing it to Sturgis.
“I think what made Evel Knievel so entertaining to watch and such a courageous guy is that he jumped a bike that wasn’t made for jumping. These Harleys don’t have suspension, they have a three or four inches of travel for maybe a speed bump or a pothole. They’re not made to jump hundreds of feet, so that’s why the current record hasn’t been broken in more than 15 years. That’s why there aren’t a ton of people lining up to go 200 feet. I think I’m the only one that’s willing to risk it and do that.”
Raha is willing to do it over and over.
Sometimes it is easy to see where inspiration comes from and why Raha needed to make that fourth jump. In June 2025, Raha broke another record for the longest jump landing on a flat surface at the Palm Springs Surf Club. That jump measured 200 feet, one inch.
More records are planned. In fact, that is why his official Website page is named RecordBreakers.co.
