1988 Pannill Sweatshirts 500
The 1988 Pannill Sweatshirts 500 was the eighth stock car race of the 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 39th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, April 24, 1988, before an audience of 42,000 in Martinsville, Virginia at Martinsville Speedway, a permanent oval-shaped short track. The race took the scheduled 500 laps to complete. At race's end, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt would manage to dominate the latter stages of the race, leading the final 182 laps to take his 33rd career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his second victory of the season. To fill out the top three, Hagan Racing driver Sterling Marlin and Stavola Brothers Racing driver Bobby Hillin Jr. would finish 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 21, at 2:00 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, April 22, at 1:30 pm EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-30 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 but were high enough in owner's points; up to two were given.Ricky Rudd, driving for King Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 20.734 and an average speed of in the first round.
Four drivers would fail to qualify.