1990 Tyson Holly Farms 400
The 1990 Tyson Holly Farms 400 was the 25th stock car race of the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 41st iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 30, 1990, before an audience of 39,000 in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina at the North Wilkesboro Speedway, a oval short track. The race took the scheduled 400 laps to complete. In the final laps of the race, Roush Racing driver Mark Martin would manage to mount a late-race charge to maintain his driver's championship lead over second-place finisher and driver in the driver's championship, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt. The victory was Martin's fourth career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and third and final victory of the season.
Hours after the race, 1990 NASCAR Rookie of the Year contender Rob Moroso was killed in a drunk-driving crash, with Moroso speeding into another car at around according to The Charlotte Observer, killing Moroso and nursing assistant Tammy Williams. Moroso's blood alcohol content at the time of the crash was found to be over twice the North Carolina legal limit of 0.1, with Moroso's BAC coming in as a 0.22.
Background
North Wilkesboro Speedway is a short oval racetrack located on U.S. Route 421, about five miles east of the town of North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, or 80 miles north of Charlotte. It measures and features a unique uphill backstretch and downhill frontstretch. It has previously held races in NASCAR's top three series, including 93 Winston Cup Series races. The track, a NASCAR original, operated from 1949, NASCAR's inception, until the track's original closure in 1996. The speedway briefly reopened in 2010 and hosted several stock car series races before closing again in the spring of 2011. It was re-opened in August 2022 for grassroots racing.Entry list
' denotes rookie driver.Qualifying
Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, September 28, at 3:00 PM EST. Each driver would have one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top ten 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 29, at 12:00 PM EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 11-30 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.Kyle Petty, driving for SABCO Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 19.332 and an average speed of in the first round.
Five drivers would fail to qualify.