1988 Budweiser 500

Race details
Race 11 of 29 in the 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1988 Budweiser 500 program cover, featuring Terry Labonte.
Date	June 5, 1988
Official name	20th 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	118.726 miles per hour (191.071 km/h)
Attendance	61,000
Pole position
Driver	Alan Kulwicki	AK Racing
Time	24.543
Most laps led
Driver	Bill Elliott	Melling Racing
Laps	203
Winner
No. 9	Bill Elliott	Melling Racing
Television in the United States
Network	ESPN
Announcers	Bob Jenkins, Ned Jarrett, Gary Nelson
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1988 Budweiser 500 was the 11th stock car race of the 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 20th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, June 5, 1988, before an audience of 61,000 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. Coming back from a near two-lap deficit, Melling Racing driver Bill Elliott would manage to dominate the latter stages of the race, leading 203 laps to take his 25th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his second victory of the season.^[1][2][3][4] To fill out the top three, Morgan Shepherd a replacement driver for Jackson Bros. Motorsports driver Harry Gant, and Blue Max Racing driver Rusty Wallace would finish second and third, respectively.

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 3, 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 4, 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.

Alan Kulwicki, driving for his own AK Racing team, would win the pole, setting a time of 24.543 and an average speed of 146.681 miles per hour (236.060 km/h) in the first round.^[6]

Buddy Arrington was the only driver to fail to qualify.

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dale Earnhardt 1,621 2 Rusty Wallace 1,605 (-16) 2 3 Bill Elliott 1,571 (-50) 1 4 Sterling Marlin 1,539 (–82) 1 5 Terry Labonte 1,527 (–94) 6 Bobby Allison 1,511 (–110) 7 Ken Schrader 1,428 (–193) 1 8 Geoff Bodine 1,413 (–208) 1 9 Bobby Hillin Jr. 1,387 (–234) 10 Darrell Waltrip 1,358 (–263) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References