1988 Busch 500
The 1988 Busch 500 was the 20th stock car race of the 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 28th iteration of the event. The race was held on Saturday, August 27, 1988, before an audience of 54,000 in Bristol, Tennessee, at Bristol International Speedway, a 0.533 miles permanent oval-shaped racetrack. The race took the scheduled 500 laps to complete. At race's end, Richard Childress Racing's Dale Earnhardt managed to dominate the late stages of the race, leading the final 110 laps to take his 34th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his third and final victory of the season. To fill out the top three, Melling Racing's Bill Elliott and Hendrick Motorsports's Geoff Bodine would finish second and third, respectively.
Background
The Bristol Motor Speedway, formerly known as Bristol International Raceway and Bristol Raceway, is a NASCAR short track venue located in Bristol, Tennessee. Constructed in 1960, it held its first NASCAR race on July 30, 1961. Despite its short length, Bristol is among the most popular tracks on the NASCAR schedule because of its distinct features, which include extraordinarily steep banking, an all concrete surface, two pit roads, and stadium-like seating. It has also been named one of the loudest NASCAR tracks.Entry list
' denotes rookie driver.Qualifying
Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, August 26, at 7:35 PM EST. Each driver would have one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 15 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, August 27, at 1:00 PM EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 15-30 would be decided on time, 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.Alan Kulwicki, driving for his own AK Racing team, would win the pole, setting a time of 16.415 and an average speed of in the first round.
Eight drivers would fail to qualify.