1990 Atlanta Journal 500

Race details
Race 29 of 29 in the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1990 Atlanta Journal 500 program cover, featuring Dale Earnhardt.
Date	November 18, 1990
Official name	31st Annual Atlanta Journal 500
Location	Hampton, Georgia, Atlanta Motor Speedway
Course	Permanent racing facility 1.522 mi (2.449 km)
Distance	328 laps, 499.216 mi (803.41 km)
Scheduled Distance	328 laps, 499.216 mi (803.41 km)
Average speed	140.911 miles per hour (226.774 km/h)
Attendance	75,000
Pole position
Driver	Rusty Wallace	Blue Max Racing
Time	31.270
Most laps led
Driver	Bill Elliott	Melling Racing
Laps	94
Winner
No. 15	Morgan Shepherd	Bud Moore Engineering
Television in the United States
Network	ESPN
Announcers	Bob Jenkins, Ned Jarrett, Benny Parsons
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1990 Atlanta Journal 500 was the 29th and final stock car race of the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 31st iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, November 18, 1990, before an audience of 75,000 in Hampton, Georgia, at Atlanta Motor Speedway, a 1.522 miles (2.449 km) permanent asphalt quad-oval intermediate speedway. The race took the scheduled 328 laps to complete. In the final laps of the race, Bud Moore Engineering driver Morgan Shepherd would manage to defend the field on the final 21-lap green flag stint of the race to take his third career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his only victory of the season.^[1][2][3][4]

In the driver's championship, Dale Earnhardt, after keeping his car within the lead pack throughout the race, was able to finish third and ahead of championship contender Mark Martin. Earnhardt was able to win his fourth NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship by a margin of 26 points, a margin that would not have existed if Martin had not been penalized at the 1990 Pontiac Excitement 400 where Martin had gotten penalized 46 points after the race.^[5]

On lap 300 of the race, an accident would occur on pit road when Ricky Rudd locked up his car's brakes and spun into Bill Elliott's car while Elliott was pitting, with Rudd's car hitting numerous pit crew members of Elliott's team. One of the team members for Elliott, Mike Rich, would die due to a cardiac arrest caused by injuries sustained in the crash.^[6]

Background

The layout of Atlanta Motor Speedway, the circuit where the race was held.

Atlanta Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta International Raceway) is a 1.522-mile race track in Hampton, Georgia, United States, 20 miles (32 km) south of Atlanta. It has annually hosted NASCAR Winston Cup Series stock car races since its inauguration in 1960.

The venue was bought by Speedway Motorsports in 1990. In 1994, 46 condominiums were built over the northeastern side of the track. In 1997, to standardize the track with Speedway Motorsports' other two intermediate ovals, the entire track was almost completely rebuilt. The frontstretch and backstretch were swapped, and the configuration of the track was changed from oval to quad-oval, with a new official length of 1.54-mile (2.48 km) where before it was 1.522-mile (2.449 km). The project made the track one of the fastest on the NASCAR circuit.

Qualifying

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, November 16, at 2:00 PM EST. Each driver would have one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 20 drivers in the round would be guaranteed a starting spot in the race. If a driver was not able to guarantee a spot in the first round, they had the option to scrub their time from the first round and try and run a faster lap time in a second round qualifying run, held on Saturday, November 17, at 10:30 AM EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-40 would be decided on time,^[7] and depending on who needed it, a select amount of positions were given to cars who had not otherwise qualified but were high enough in owner's points; up to two were given.

Rusty Wallace, driving for Blue Max Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 31.270 and an average speed of 175.222 miles per hour (281.992 km/h) in the first round.^[8]

Eight drivers would fail to qualify.

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dale Earnhardt 4,430 2 Mark Martin 4,404 (-26) 1 3 Geoff Bodine 4,017 (-413) 1 4 Bill Elliott 3,999 (–431) 1 5 Morgan Shepherd 3,689 (–741) 1 6 Rusty Wallace 3,676 (–754) 7 Ricky Rudd 3,601 (–829) 1 8 Alan Kulwicki 3,599 (–831) 1 9 Ernie Irvan 3,593 (–837) 1 10 Ken Schrader 3,572 (–858) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References