Ron Pierce (No. 97) goes around the outside of Moto Guzzi racer Ian Day (No. 272) with Gary Tompkins (No. 260 Kawasaki) looking on in the 1979 Bell Superbike 100 at Daytona International Speedway. Pierce won the race leading a Yoshimura Suzuki sweep of the podium.
Ron Pierce (No. 97) goes around the outside of Moto Guzzi racer Ian Day (No. 272) with Gary Tompkins (No. 260 Kawasaki) looking on.
Pierce led a Yoshimura Suzuki sweep of the Bell Helmets Superbike 100 at Daytona International Speedway on March 9, 1979. Pierce came out on top over fellow Yoshimura Suzuki GS1000 riders Wes Cooley and David Emde.
Pierce had a spectacular save during the race when going through the dogleg he lost the front end at high speed. The bike went over on Pierce’s ankle and the handlebar nearly hit the ground, but somehow it came back to Pierce and he continued, albeit with a higher heart rate.
Pierce took control of the race when early leader Wes Cooley suffered brake fade on his bike.
Yoshimura Suzuki’s one-two-three marked a transition in AMA Superbike – previously sharp-handling Twin-cylinder machines, such as the BMW, Moto Guzzi and Ducati, were competitive against the Japanese multis, but with the advent of much better handling multis, like the GS1000, the series became dominated by Japanese inline fours.
Rider Files 
Larry-
An interview with Ron Pierce would be very interesting, at least for me.
I remember him as a respectable dirt track racer in the mid 60’s early 70’s. He seem to disappear for a while, then came back to be a top notch road racer in the late 70’s.
Devon Sowell
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