1990 Heinz Southern 500

1990 Heinz Southern 500

Race details
Race 21 of 29 in the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1990 Heinz Southern 500 program cover, featuring Dale Earnhardt.
Date	September 2, 1990
Official name	41st Annual Heinz Southern 500
Location	Darlington Raceway, Darlington, South Carolina
Course	Permanent racing facility 1.366 mi (2.221 km)
Distance	367 laps, 501.322 mi (806.799 km)
Scheduled Distance	367 laps, 501.322 mi (806.799 km)
Average speed	123.141 miles per hour (198.176 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Time	31.036
Most laps led
Driver	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Laps	99
Winner
No. 3	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Television in the United States
Network	ESPN
Announcers	Bob Jenkins, Ned Jarrett, Benny Parsons
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1990 Heinz Southern 500 was the 21st stock car race of the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 41st iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 2, 1990, in Darlington, South Carolina, at Darlington Raceway, a 1.366 miles (2.198 km) permanent egg-shaped oval racetrack. The race took the scheduled 367 laps to complete. At race's end, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt would manage to dominate the late stages of the race, leading the final 54 laps of the race to take his 46th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his seventh victory of the season.^[1][2][3][4] To fill out the top three, Morgan–McClure Motorsports driver Ernie Irvan and owner-driver Alan Kulwicki would finish second and third, respectively.

Darlington Raceway is a race track built for NASCAR racing located near Darlington, South Carolina. It is nicknamed "The Lady in Black" and "The Track Too Tough to Tame" by many NASCAR fans and drivers and advertised as "A NASCAR Tradition." It is of a unique, somewhat egg-shaped design, an oval with the ends of very different configurations, a condition which supposedly arose from the proximity of one end of the track to a minnow pond the owner refused to relocate. This situation makes it very challenging for the crews to set up their cars' handling in a way that is effective at both ends.

• (R) denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Thursday, August 30, 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 Friday, August 31, at 2:00 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 on time but were high enough in owner's points; up to two provisionals were given.

Dale Earnhardt, driving for Richard Childress Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 31.036 and an average speed of 158.448 miles per hour (254.997 km/h) in the first round.^[6][7]

J. D. McDuffie was the only driver to fail to qualify.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Mark Martin 3,169 2 Dale Earnhardt 3,143 (-26) 3 Geoff Bodine 2,982 (-187) 4 Rusty Wallace 2,792 (–377) 5 Bill Elliott 2,761 (–408) 1 6 Ricky Rudd 2,695 (–474) 1 7 Morgan Shepherd 2,661 (–508) 8 Kyle Petty 2,618 (–551) 1 9 Ken Schrader 2,587 (–582) 1 10 Ernie Irvan 2,534 (–635) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.