1986 Sovran Bank 500
The 1986 Sovran Bank 500 was the eighth stock car race of the 1986 NASCAR Winston Cup Series and the 37th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, April 27, 1986, before an audience of 38,500 in Martinsville, Virginia at Martinsville Speedway, a permanent oval-shaped short track. The race took the scheduled 500 laps to complete.
In a race of attrition, Bud Moore Engineering's Ricky Rudd took advantage of numerous mechanical failures given to other drivers during the race, lapping the field and leading the final 149 laps. The victory was Rudd's fifth career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his first victory of the season. To fill out the top three, King Racing's Joe Ruttman and Hagan Enterprises' Terry Labonte finished second and third, respectively.
Background
Martinsville Speedway is a NASCAR-owned stock car racing track located in Henry County, in Ridgeway, Virginia, just to the south of Martinsville. At 0.526 miles in length, it is the shortest track in the NASCAR Cup Series. The track was also one of the first paved oval tracks in NASCAR, being built in 1947 by H. Clay Earles. It is also the only remaining race track that has been on the NASCAR circuit from its beginning in 1948.Entry list
' denotes rookie driver.Qualifying
Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Thursday, April 24, at 1:30 PM EST. Each driver had one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 10 drivers in the round were 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, April 25, at 1:30 PM EST. As with the first round, each driver had one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 11-30 were decided on time, 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.Tim Richmond, driving for Hendrick Motorsports, won the pole, setting a time of 20.893 and an average speed of in the first round.
Two drivers failed to qualify.