1989 Peak Performance 500

1989 Peak Performance 500

Race details
Race 23 of 29 in the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1989 Peak Performance 500 program cover, featuring Kyle Petty.
Date	September 17, 1989
Official name	19th Annual Peak Performance 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	122.909 miles per hour (197.803 km/h)
Attendance	64,000
Pole position
Driver	Davey Allison	Robert Yates Racing
Time	24.629
Most laps led
Driver	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Laps	375
Winner
No. 3	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Television in the United States
Network	ESPN
Announcers	Bob Jenkins, Benny Parsons, Ned Jarrett
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1989 Peak Performance 500 was the 23rd stock car race of the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 19th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 17, 1989, before an audience of 64,000 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. At race's end, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt would manage to fend off Roush Racing driver Mark Martin in the final laps of the race, completing a dominant performance of the race. The victory was Earnhardt's 38th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his fourth victory of the season.^[1][2][3][4] To fill out the top three, the aforementioned Mark Martin and Hendrick Motorsports driver Ken Schrader would finish second and third, respectively.

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.

• (R) denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, September 14, 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 15, 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.

Davey Allison, driving for Robert Yates Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 24.629 and an average speed of 146.169 miles per hour (235.236 km/h) in the first round.^[6][7]

No drivers would fail to qualify.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dale Earnhardt 3,397 2 Rusty Wallace 3,295 (-102) 3 Mark Martin 3,191 (-206) 4 Darrell Waltrip 3,072 (–325) 1 5 Bill Elliott 2,956 (–441) 1 6 Ricky Rudd 2,937 (–460) 2 7 Ken Schrader 2,894 (–503) 3 8 Davey Allison 2,892 (–505) 1 9 Geoff Bodine 2,808 (–589) 1 10 Terry Labonte 2,805 (–592) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.