1995 Miller Genuine Draft 500

Race details
Race 12 of 31 in the 1995 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1995 Miller Genuine Draft 500 program cover, featuring Rusty Wallace. Artwork by NASCAR artist Sam Bass.
Date	June 4, 1995
Official name	27th Annual Miller Genuine Draft 500
Location	Dover, Delaware, Dover 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	119.88 miles per hour (192.93 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Jeff Gordon	Hendrick Motorsports
Time	23.427
Most laps led
Driver	Kyle Petty	Team SABCO
Laps	271
Winner
No. 42	Kyle Petty	Team SABCO
Television in the United States
Network	TNN
Announcers	Mike Joy, Dick Berggren, Buddy Baker
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1995 Miller Genuine Draft 500 was the 12th stock car race of the 1995 NASCAR Winston Cup Series and the 27th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, June 4, 1995, in Dover, Delaware at Dover International Speedway, a 1-mile (1.6 km) permanent oval-shaped racetrack. The race took the scheduled 500 laps to complete. Ending a two-year long winless drought, Team SABCO driver Kyle Petty would manage to dominate a majority of the race to take his eighth and final career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his only victory of the season.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Bobby Labonte and Roush Racing driver Ted Musgrave would finish second and third, respectively.

Background

The layout of Dover International Speedway, the venue where the race was held.

Dover 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 Friday, June 2, 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, June 3, 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 21–38 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 four. 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.

Jeff Gordon, driving for Hendrick Motorsports, would win the pole, setting a time of 23.427 and an average speed of 153.669 miles per hour (247.306 km/h) in the first round.^[4]

Two drivers would fail to qualify.

Race results

References