1992 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500

Race details
Race 4 of 29 in the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1992 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500 program cover, featuring Geoff Bodine.
Date	March 15, 1992
Official name	33rd Annual Motorcraft Quality Parts 500
Location	Hampton, Georgia, Atlanta Motor Speedway
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	147.746 miles per hour (237.774 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Mark Martin	Roush Racing
Time	30.453
Most laps led
Driver	Davey Allison	Robert Yates Racing
Laps	160
Winner
No. 11	Bill Elliott	Junior Johnson & Associates
Television in the United States
Network	ABC
Announcers	Paul Page, Benny Parsons, Bobby Unser
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1992 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500 was the fourth stock car race of the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 33rd iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, March 15, 1992, in Hampton, Georgia at Atlanta Motor Speedway, a 1.522 miles (2.449 km) permanent asphalt quad-oval intermediate speedway. The race took the scheduled 328 laps to complete. With the help of a late caution, Junior Johnson & Associates driver Bill Elliott would manage to pull away on the final restart with 40 to go to take his 37th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory, his third victory of the season, and his third consecutive victory.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, Leo Jackson Motorsports driver Harry Gant and Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt would finish second and third, respectively.

Background

The layout of Atlanta Motor Speedway, the circuit where the race was held.

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.

Qualifying

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, March 13, 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 Saturday, March 14, 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,^[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; which was usually two. 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.

Mark Martin, driving for Roush Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 30.453 and an average speed of 179.923 miles per hour (289.558 km/h) in the first round.^[4]

Four drivers would fail to qualify.

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Davey Allison 695 1 2 Bill Elliott 637 (-58) 1 3 Harry Gant 637 (-58) 1 4 Terry Labonte 577 (–118) 1 5 Morgan Shepherd 572 (–123) 1 6 Alan Kulwicki 551 (–144) 1 7 Geoff Bodine 551 (–144) 3 8 Dale Earnhardt 524 (–171) 5 9 Kyle Petty 476 (–219) 10 10 Dick Trickle 462 (–233) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References