1992 AC Delco 500

Race details
Race 27 of 29 in the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1992 AC Delco 500 program cover, featuring Richard Petty.
Date	October 25, 1992
Official name	18th 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	130.748 miles per hour (210.419 km/h)
Attendance	62,300
Pole position
Driver	Kyle Petty	SABCO Racing
Time	24.461
Most laps led
Driver	Kyle Petty	SABCO Racing
Laps	484
Winner
No. 42	Kyle Petty	SABCO Racing
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 AC Delco 500 was the 27th stock car race of the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 18th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, October 25, 1992, before an audience of 62,300 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. At race's end, SABCO Racing driver Kyle Petty would dominate the race to take his sixth career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his second and final victory of the season.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, Morgan–McClure Motorsports driver Ernie Irvan and Hendrick Motorsports driver Ricky Rudd would finish second and third, respectively.

In the overall driver's championship standings, championship leader Bill Elliott, assisted by a fourth-place finish, would manage to increase his points lead over second-place driver Davey Allison to 70 points after three consecutive poor finishes for Elliott. The winner of the race, Kyle Petty, would move to fourth in the standings, 94 points behind Elliott, and nine points behind third-place driver Alan Kulwicki, who was 85 points behind Elliott in the standings.^[3]

Background

The layout of North Carolina Speedway, the venue where the race was held.

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.^[4]

Qualifying

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Thursday, October 22, at 2:30 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 Friday, October 23, at 1:00 PM 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. 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.

Kyle Petty, driving for SABCO Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 24.461 and an average speed of 149.675 miles per hour (240.879 km/h) in the first round.^[6]

No drivers would fail to qualify.

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Bill Elliott 3,818 2 Davey Allison 3,748 (-70) 3 Alan Kulwicki 3,733 (-85) 2 4 Kyle Petty 3,724 (–94) 5 Harry Gant 3,705 (–113) 2 6 Mark Martin 3,640 (–178) 7 Ricky Rudd 3,574 (–244) 1 8 Ernie Irvan 3,438 (–380) 1 9 Darrell Waltrip 3,400 (–418) 10 Terry Labonte 3,399 (–419) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References