1994 AC Delco 500

1994 AC Delco 500

Race details
Race 29 of 31 in the 1994 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1994 AC Delco 500 program cover, featuring Darrell Waltrip.
Date	October 23, 1994
Official name	20th Annual AC Delco 500
Location	Rockingham, North Carolina, North Carolina Motor Speedway
Course	Permanent racing facility 1.017 mi (1.636 km)
Distance	492 laps, 500.364 mi (805.257 km)
Scheduled Distance	492 laps, 500.364 mi (805.257 km)
Average speed	126.408 miles per hour (203.434 km/h)
Attendance	55,000
Pole position
Driver	Ricky Rudd	Rudd Performance Motorsports
Time	23.305
Most laps led
Driver	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Laps	108
Winner
No. 3	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Television in the United States
Network	TNN
Announcers	Mike Joy, Buddy Baker
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1994 AC Delco 500 was the 29th stock car race of the 1994 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 20th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, October 23, 1994, in Rockingham, North Carolina, at North Carolina Speedway, a 1.017 miles (1.637 km) permanent high-banked racetrack. The race took the scheduled 492 laps to complete. In the final laps of the race, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt would manage to defend against Precision Products Racing driver Rick Mast to take his 63rd career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his fourth and final victory of the season.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, the aforementioned Rick Mast and Wood Brothers Racing driver Morgan Shepherd would finish second and third, respectively.

With the victory, Earnhardt would manage to mathematically clinch and win a record-tying seventh NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship, which at the time was an achievement only achieved by Richard Petty. Earnhardt had only needed to gain 50 points on second-place driver in the driver's standings, Rusty Wallace. With Earnhardt's win and an early engine issue from Wallace, Earnhardt had managed to gain 127 points on Wallace, thus clinching the championship.^[3] The feat would not be matched until 2016, when Jimmie Johnson managed to win his seventh championship at the 2016 Ford EcoBoost 400.

Background

North Carolina Speedway was opened as a flat, one-mile oval on October 31, 1965. In 1969, the track was extensively reconfigured to a high-banked, D-shaped oval just over one mile in length. In 1997, North Carolina Motor Speedway merged with Penske Motorsports, and was renamed North Carolina Speedway. Shortly thereafter, the infield was reconfigured, and competition on the infield road course, mostly by the SCCA, was discontinued. Currently, the track is home to the Fast Track High Performance Driving School.

Entry list

• (R) denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying

Qualifying was originally scheduled to be split into two rounds. The first round was scheduled to be held on Thursday, October 20, at 3:00 PM EST. However, after 35 drivers had taken times for qualifying, first-round qualifying was rained out and postponed until Friday, October 21, at 2:00 PM EST.^[4] As a result of the rain delay, qualifying was decided to be combined into only one round. For this specific race, positions 1-40 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. 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.

Ricky Rudd, driving for his own Rudd Performance Motorsports team, would win the pole, setting a time of 23.305 and an average speed of 157.099 miles per hour (252.826 km/h) in the first round.^[6]

Three drivers would fail to qualify.

Full qualifying results

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dale Earnhardt 4,476 2 Rusty Wallace 4,028 (-448) 3 Mark Martin 3,890 (-586) 4 Ken Schrader 3,812 (–664) 5 Ricky Rudd 3,778 (–698) 6 Morgan Shepherd 3,752 (–724) 1 7 Terry Labonte 3,549 (–927) 2 8 Bill Elliott 3,505 (–971) 2 9 Jeff Gordon 3,493 (–983) 1 10 Darrell Waltrip 3,454 (–1,022) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References