1996 MBNA 500

Race details
Race 25 of 31 in the 1996 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1996 Miller 500 program cover, featuring Ward Burton.
Date	September 15, 1996
Official name	28th Annual MBNA 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	105.646 miles per hour (170.021 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Bobby Labonte	Joe Gibbs Racing
Time	23.213
Most laps led
Driver	Jeff Gordon	Hendrick Motorsports
Laps	204
Winner
No. 24	Jeff Gordon	Hendrick Motorsports
Television in the United States
Network	TNN
Announcers	Eli Gold, Dick Berggren, Buddy Baker
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1996 MBNA 500 was the 25th stock car race of the 1996 NASCAR Winston Cup Series and the 28th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 15, 1996, 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. In the final laps of the race, Hendrick Motorsports driver Jeff Gordon would manage to dominate the late stages of the race to take his 17th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his eighth victory of the season.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, Penske Racing South driver Rusty Wallace and Robert Yates Racing driver Dale Jarrett 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, September 13, at 3:00 PM EST. Each driver would have one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 25 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, September 14, 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 26-38 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.

Bobby Labonte, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 23.213 and an average speed of 155.086 miles per hour (249.587 km/h).^[4]

Eric Smith was the only driver to fail to qualify.

Race results

References