1990 Budweiser 500

Race details
Race 11 of 29 in the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1990 Budweiser 500 program cover, featuring Geoff Bodine.
Date	June 3, 1990
Official name	22nd Annual Budweiser 500
Location	Dover, Delaware, Dover Downs International Speedway
Course	Permanent racing facility 1 mi (1.6 km)
Distance	500 laps, 500 mi (804.672 km)
Scheduled Distance	500 laps, 500 mi (804.672 km)
Average speed	120.152 miles per hour (193.366 km/h)
Attendance	72,000
Pole position
Driver	Dick Trickle	Cale Yarborough Motorsports
Time	24.689
Most laps led
Driver	Rusty Wallace	Blue Max Racing
Laps	131
Winner
No. 10	Derrike Cope	Whitcomb Racing
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 Budweiser 500 was the 11th stock car race of the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 22nd iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, June 3, 1990, before an audience of 77,000 in Dover, Delaware at Dover Downs International Speedway, a 1-mile (1.6 km) permanent oval-shaped racetrack. The race took the scheduled 500 laps to complete. In the late stages of the race, Whitcomb Racing driver Derrike Cope would make a late-race charge to the front, passing for the lead with 55 laps to go to take his second and to date, final career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his second and final victory of the season.^[1][2][3] To fill out the top three, Hendrick Motorsports driver Ken Schrader and Cale Yarborough Motorsports driver Dick Trickle would finish second and third, respectively.

In the driver's championship standings, Bud Moore Engineering driver Morgan Shepherd would take the overall lead after a poor finish from then-points leader Dale Earnhardt.^[4]

Background

The layout of Dover Downs International Speedway, the venue where the race was held.

Dover Downs International Speedway is an oval race track in Dover, Delaware, United States that has held at least two NASCAR races since it opened in 1969. In addition to NASCAR, the track also hosted USAC and the NTT IndyCar Series. The track features one layout, a 1-mile (1.6 km) concrete oval, with 24° banking in the turns and 9° banking on the straights. The speedway is owned and operated by Dover Motorsports.

The track, nicknamed "The Monster Mile", was built in 1969 by Melvin Joseph of Melvin L. Joseph Construction Company, Inc., with an asphalt surface, but was replaced with concrete in 1995. Six years later in 2001, the track's capacity moved to 135,000 seats, making the track have the largest capacity of sports venue in the mid-Atlantic. In 2002, the name changed to Dover International Speedway from Dover Downs International Speedway after Dover Downs Gaming and Entertainment split, making Dover Motorsports. From 2007 to 2009, the speedway worked on an improvement project called "The Monster Makeover", which expanded facilities at the track and beautified the track. After the 2014 season, the track's capacity was reduced to 95,500 seats.

Qualifying

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, June 1, at 3:00 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, June 2, at 11:30 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,^[5] 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 provisionals were given.

Dick Trickle, driving for Cale Yarborough Motorsports, would win the pole, setting a time of 24.689 and an average speed of 145.814 miles per hour (234.665 km/h) in the first round.^[6][7]

No drivers would fail to qualify.

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 1 Morgan Shepherd 1,662 1 2 Mark Martin 1,630 (-32) 2 3 Dale Earnhardt 1,603 (-59) 1 4 Rusty Wallace 1,503 (–159) 1 5 Geoff Bodine 1,484 (–178) 1 6 Kyle Petty 1,479 (–183) 1 7 Darrell Waltrip 1,453 (–209) 8 Bill Elliott 1,446 (–216) 9 Ken Schrader 1,446 (–216) 2 10 Ernie Irvan 1,353 (–309) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References