1991 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500

Race details
Race 4 of 29 in the 1991 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1991 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500 program cover, featuring Morgan Shepherd.
Date	March 17 & 18, 1991
Official name	32nd Annual Motorcraft Quality Parts 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	140.47 miles per hour (226.06 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Alan Kulwicki	AK Racing
Time	31.415
Most laps led
Driver	Bill Elliott	Melling Racing
Laps	102
Winner
No. 25	Ken Schrader	Hendrick Motorsports
Television in the United States
Network	ABC
Announcers	Paul Page, Benny Parsons, Bobby Unser
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1991 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500 was the fourth stock car race of the 1991 NASCAR Winston Cup Series and the 32nd iteration of the event. The race took place over the days of Sunday, March 17 and Monday, March 18, 1991, due to rain delays that left only the first 47 laps of the race being run on Sunday.^[1] The race was held 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. Depending on fuel mileage, Hendrick Motorsports driver Ken Schrader would manage to stretch the final 65 laps of the race on one tank of fuel to take his third career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his first victory of the season.^[2][3] To fill out the top three, Melling Racing driver Bill Elliott and Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt would finish second and third, respectively.

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, March 15, 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, March 16, 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,^[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; which was usually two. If needed, a past champion who did not qualify on either time or provisionals could use a champion's provisional, adding one more spot to the field.

Alan Kulwicki, driving for his own AK Racing team, would win the pole, setting a time of 31.415 and an average speed of 174.413 miles per hour (280.691 km/h) in the first round.^[6] In the second round, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt would manage to beat his time with a time of 31.247; however, since the time was in the second round, Earnhardt would only garner the 21st starting position.^[7]

Two drivers would fail to qualify.

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dale Earnhardt 652 2 Ricky Rudd 628 (-24) 1 3 Alan Kulwicki 561 (-91) 5 4 Ken Schrader 559 (–93) 5 Ernie Irvan 533 (–119) 3 6 Harry Gant 529 (–123) 4 7 Sterling Marlin 528 (–124) 1 8 Darrell Waltrip 523 (–129) 7 9 Morgan Shepherd 497 (–155) 13 10 Bill Elliott 492 (–160) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References