1987 Budweiser 400
The 1987 Budweiser 400 was the 13th stock car race of the 1987 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season, the second race of the 1987 NASCAR Winston West Series, and the 19th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, June 21, 1987, before an audience of 55,000 in Riverside, California, at the short layout of Riverside International Raceway, a permanent road course layout at the track. The race took the scheduled 95 laps to complete.
By race's end, Hendrick Motorsports' Tim Richmond managed to dominate the late stages of the race, leading the last 31 of 39 laps to take his 13th and final career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his second and final victory of the season. To fill out the top three, Bud Moore Engineering's Ricky Rudd and RahMoc Enterprises' Neil Bonnett finished second and third, respectively.
Background
Riverside International Raceway was a motorsports race track and road course established in the Edgemont area of Riverside County, California, just east of the city limits of Riverside and east of Los Angeles, in 1957. In 1984, the raceway became part of the newly incorporated city of Moreno Valley. Riverside was noted for its hot, dusty environment and for being somewhat of a complicated and dangerous track for drivers. It was also considered one of the finest tracks in the United States.Entry list
' denotes rookie driver.Qualifying
Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, June 19, at 6:30 PM EST. Each driver had one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 20 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 Saturday, June 20, at 5:00 PM EST. As with the first round, each driver had one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-40 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 provisionals were given.Terry Labonte, driving for Junior Johnson & Associates, managed to win the pole, setting a time of 1:20.244 and an average speed of in the first round.
Five drivers failed to qualify.