Rob, found this
os it turns out that he indeed had a big crash in suzuka... but came back to kick honda's ass and then quited, quite a type he must have been
Ron Pierce Sighted
Wandering around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway yesterday afternoon was none other than Steve McLaughlin, the man who had a large part in starting AMA Superbike racing, and the World Superbike series. With him was none other than Ron Pierce, the rider standing next to Eddie Lawson on the cover page of amasuperbike.com.
Pierce rode for all of the major manufacturers in his riding career. He says of the photo and that day at Riverside:
"I rode for Honda at the eight hours of Suzuka in 1980 and broke my back, broke thirty bones. Honda fired me and wouldn't pay me for my contract so I had a year to recoup and heal from the crash.
A year later the guys at Kawasaki called me and asked if I'd like to kick Honda's ass. The guys at Kawasaki were great guys and they knew me and knew I was pretty angry about how things ended with Honda. I thought about it for a second and then told them, 'Yeah!'.
And we did, we kicked Honda's ass. Kawasaki had Eddie Lawson there and we stomped 'em. Honda had Freddie Spencer there and we lapped em. Eddie rode the first half of the race and I rode the second half. It was great."
While here at LVMS, he chatted with his old comrades Rob Muzzy (thanks for the intro, Robert) and Steve Johnson who worked as Pierce's mechanic for many years.
On the podium, which was a year to the day of Pierce's crash at Suzuka, he was asked how he felt. He said " I feel good, I'm sore and tired, but it's not bad. But as of right now, I quit." That was Ron Pierce's last motorcycle race. "I went out on top," he says.
In fact that was the last motorcycle race he attended, until Saturday at LVMS. "When I came here today, as I was driving through the gates, my hands got all clammy and I was filled with the same emotions I had when I raced. I called it hesitant eagerness. My son never saw me race so it is neat to bring him here and show him what his dad used to do."
Ron builds homes in Southern California now.
Pierce said that an ex-wife put all of his racing memorbilia in a pile and burned it, and he's looking for photos of his racing career.
