1995 Mountain Dew Southern 500
The 1995 Mountain Dew Southern 500 was the 23rd stock car race of the 1995 NASCAR Winston Cup Series and the 46th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 3, 1995, in Darlington, South Carolina, at Darlington Raceway, a permanent egg-shaped oval racetrack. The race took the scheduled 367 laps to complete. On the final restart with nine to go, Hendrick Motorsports driver Jeff Gordon would manage to pull away from the field to take his eighth career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his sixth victory of the season. To fill out the top three, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt and Penske Racing South driver Rusty Wallace would finish second and third, respectively.
Background
Darlington Raceway is a race track built for NASCAR racing located near Darlington, South Carolina. It is nicknamed "The Lady in Black" and "The Track Too Tough to Tame" by many NASCAR fans and drivers and advertised as "A NASCAR Tradition." It is of a unique, somewhat egg-shaped design, an oval with the ends of very different configurations, a condition which supposedly arose from the proximity of one end of the track to a minnow pond the owner refused to relocate. This situation makes it very challenging for the crews to set up their cars' handling in a way that is effective at both ends.Entry list
' denotes rookie driver.Qualifying
Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, March 24, at 2:30 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, March 25, at 10:00 AM EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-38 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 four were given. If needed, a past champion who did not qualify on either time or provisionals could use a champion's provisional, adding one more spot to the field.John Andretti, driving for Kranefuss-Haas Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 29.380 and an average speed of in the first round.
Three drivers would fail to qualify.