1988 Delaware 500

Race details
Race 23 of 29 in the 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1988 Delaware 500 program cover.
Date	September 18, 1988
Official name	18th Annual Delaware 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	109.349 miles per hour (175.980 km/h)
Attendance	56,500
Pole position
Driver	Mark Martin	Roush Racing
Time	24.312
Most laps led
Driver	Bill Elliott	Melling Racing
Laps	392
Winner
No. 9	Bill Elliott	Melling Racing
Television in the United States
Network	ESPN
Announcers	Bob Jenkins, Benny Parsons, Gary Nelson
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1988 Delaware 500 was the 23rd stock car race of the 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 18th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 18, 1988, before an audience of 56,500 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. At race's end, Melling Racing's Bill Elliott managed to dominate a majority of the race, leading 392 laps to take his 29th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his sixth and final victory of the season.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, Richard Childress Racing's Dale Earnhardt and Blue Max Racing's 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, September 16, 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, September 17, 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,^[3] 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.

Mark Martin, driving for Roush Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 24.312 and an average speed of 148.075 miles per hour (238.304 km/h) in the first round.^[4]

Six drivers would fail to qualify.

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Bill Elliott 3,548 2 Dale Earnhardt 3,421 (-127) 3 Rusty Wallace 3,409 (-139) 4 Terry Labonte 3,075 (–473) 1 5 Geoff Bodine 3,048 (–500) 1 6 Ken Schrader 2,999 (–549) 1 7 Darrell Waltrip 2,923 (–625) 1 8 Sterling Marlin 2,918 (–630) 9 Phil Parsons 2,878 (–670) 10 Davey Allison 2,854 (–694) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References