1986 Budweiser 500

Race details
Race 10 of 29 in the 1986 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1986 Budweiser 500 program cover.
Date	May 18, 1986
Official name	18th Annual Budweiser 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	115.009 miles per hour (185.089 km/h)
Attendance	51,000
Pole position
Driver	Ricky Rudd	Bud Moore Engineering
Time	26.046
Most laps led
Driver	Harry Gant	Mach 1 Racing
Laps	177
Winner
No. 5	Geoff Bodine	Hendrick Motorsports
Television in the United States
Network	Mizlou
Announcers	Steve Grad, Dick Brooks
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1986 Budweiser 500 was the 10th stock car race of the 1986 NASCAR Winston Cup Series and the 18th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, May 18, 1986, before an audience of 51,000 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.

In a race of attrition, Hendrick Motorsports' Geoff Bodine was able to take advantage of an engine failure suffered by leader Harry Gant with less than 50 laps left in the race, gaining his fourth career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his second and final victory of the season.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, Stavola Brothers Racing's Bobby Allison and Richard Childress Racing's Dale Earnhardt finished second and third, respectively.

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 Saturday, May 17, at 10:00 AM EST. Each driver had one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 20 drivers in the round were 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, at 3:00 PM EST. As with the first round, each driver had one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-40 were 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.

Ricky Rudd, driving for Bud Moore Engineering, won the pole, setting a time of 26.046 and an average speed of 138.217 miles per hour (222.439 km/h) in the first round.^[4]

No drivers failed to qualify.

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dale Earnhardt 1,587 2 Darrell Waltrip 1,463 (-124) 1 3 Bobby Allison 1,373 (-214) 1 4 Terry Labonte 1,306 (–281) 2 5 Rusty Wallace 1,301 (–286) 1 6 Bill Elliott 1,287 (–300) 3 7 Geoff Bodine 1,262 (–325) 2 8 Kyle Petty 1,258 (–329) 9 Harry Gant 1,215 (–372) 2 10 Ricky Rudd 1,202 (–385) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References