1989 Busch 500
The 1989 Busch 500 was the 20th stock car race of the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 29th iteration of the event. The race was held on Saturday, August 26, 1989, 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, Hendrick Motorsports driver Darrell Waltrip would manage to dominate the late stages of the race, leading the final 206 laps to take his 78th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his fifth victory of the season. To fill out the top three, owner-driver Alan Kulwicki and King Racing driver Ricky Rudd 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 25, 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 26, 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 16.394 and an average speed of in the first round.
Four drivers would fail to qualify.