1989 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500

1989 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500

Race details
Race 3 of 29 in the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1989 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500 program cover, featuring Bill Elliott.
Date	March 19, 1989
Official name	30th Annual Motorcraft Quality Parts 500
Location	Hampton, Georgia, Atlanta International Raceway
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	139.684 miles per hour (224.800 km/h)
Attendance	41,000
Pole position
Driver	Alan Kulwicki	AK Racing
Time	30.969
Most laps led
Driver	Rusty Wallace	Blue Max Racing
Laps	130
Winner
No. 17	Darrell Waltrip	Hendrick Motorsports
Television in the United States
Network	ABC
Announcers	Paul Page, Sam Posey, Bobby Unser
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1989 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500 was the third stock car race of the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 30th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, March 19, 1989, before an audience of 41,000 in Hampton, Georgia, at Atlanta International Raceway, a 1.522 miles (2.449 km) permanent asphalt quad-oval intermediate speedway. The race took the scheduled 328 laps to complete. With the assist of a fast final pit-stop, Hendrick Motorsports driver Darrell Waltrip would manage to hold off the field on the final restart with nine laps left in the race to take his 75th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his second victory of the season.^[1][2][3][4] To fill out the top three, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt and Stavola Brothers Racing driver Dick Trickle would finish second and third, respectively.

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.

• (R) - denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, March 17, 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 18, 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; up to two were given.

Alan Kulwicki, driving for his own AK Racing team, would win the pole, setting a time of 30.969 and an average speed of 176.925 miles per hour (284.733 km/h) in the first round.^[6]

Four drivers would fail to qualify.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dale Earnhardt 510 1 2 Alan Kulwicki 441 (-69) 1 3 Geoff Bodine 441 (-69) 4 4 Darrell Waltrip 436 (–74) 5 Sterling Marlin 431 (–79) 1 6 Rick Wilson 409 (–101) 1 7 Ken Schrader 391 (–119) 4 8 Rusty Wallace 374 (–136) 9 Rick Mast 343 (–167) 10 10 Dale Jarrett 340 (–170) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.