From the Archives: Fred Pierce at La Mirada...

What we have here is Fred Pierce, of the Chevrolet/ LA Sheriff's, leading the field (and lining it out) through the start/finish stretch at the La Mirada Grand Prix. I don't know about you, but La Mirada always seemed to be the hottest race of the year; I suppose any race held during the dog days of summer (16 August 1992 in this case) would earn that reputation. This could be a Category 4 race, or it could be Cat 3 - I am not sure when Fred upgraded. The La Mirada course was your typical 4-corner criterium layout, fast and favoring the sprinters in the bunch. If I remember correctly, once you got around turn one, and maybe half way along the straight, cones narrowed the course a bit, the pave in turn three was chewed up some, and there was a slight rise before the finish - not enough to make any difference, but noticeable.


Here is what I had in my log for the race that year: "Aauugh! Can it possibly get any hotter? Combine an already difficult course with 100º weather and a continuing poor form and you are in for a hellish race ... Less than half of those who started finished it was so bad. And this was a 10:45 race, the afternoon was even worse."