1990 Goody's 500
The 1990 Goody's 500 was the 24th stock car race of the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 42nd iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 23, 1990, before an audience of 44,000 in Martinsville, Virginia at Martinsville Speedway, a permanent oval-shaped short track. The race took the scheduled 500 laps to complete. In the final stages of the race, Junior Johnson & Associates driver Geoff Bodine would manage to mount a late-race comeback, passing for the lead with 42 laps left in the race after being involved in an incident on lap 320. The victory was Bodine's ninth career NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and his second and final victory of the season. To fill out the top three, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt and Roush Racing driver Mark Martin 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 Friday, September 21, at 3:00 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 Saturday, September 22, at 12:30 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.Mark Martin, driving for Roush Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 20.679 and an average speed of in the first round.
Two drivers would fail to qualify.