1992 Peak Antifreeze 500

Race details
Race 23 of 29 in the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1992 Peak Antifreeze 500 program cover, featuring Harry Gant, Jeff Purvis, and Bill Elliott.
Date	September 20, 1992
Official name	22nd Annual Peak Antifreeze 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	115.289 miles per hour (185.540 km/h)
Attendance	80,000
Pole position
Driver	Alan Kulwicki	AK Racing
Time	24.782
Most laps led
Driver	Bill Elliott	Junior Johnson & Associates
Laps	261
Winner
No. 5	Ricky Rudd	Hendrick Motorsports
Television in the United States
Network	TNN
Announcers	Mike Joy, Buddy Baker, Neil Bonnett
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1992 Peak Antifreeze 500 was the 23rd stock car race of the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 22nd iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 20, 1992, before an audience of 80,000 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. With a call from crew chief Gary DeHart, Hendrick Motorsports driver Ricky Rudd would decide to run the final 19 laps on old tires, pitting for fuel only on lap 481. The call managed to put Rudd ahead of the field, and Rudd would manage to hold off second-place finisher, Junior Johnson & Associates driver Bill Elliott to take his 13th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his only victory of the season.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, SABCO Racing driver Kyle Petty would finish third.

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 18, 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 19, 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 21-38 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 were given. 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 24.782 and an average speed of 145.267 miles per hour (233.785 km/h) in the first round.^[4]

No drivers would fail to qualify.

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Bill Elliott 3,417 2 Davey Allison 3,263 (-154) 1 3 Harry Gant 3,178 (-239) 1 4 Alan Kulwicki 3,139 (–278) 5 Mark Martin 3,065 (–352) 1 6 Kyle Petty 3,029 (–388) 1 7 Ricky Rudd 3,002 (–415) 2 8 Darrell Waltrip 2,976 (–441) 9 Dale Earnhardt 2,911 (–506) 10 Morgan Shepherd 2,910 (–507) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References