1987 Oakwood Homes 500

Race details
Race 26 of 29 in the 1987 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1987 Oakwood Homes 500 program cover. Artwork by NASCAR artist Sam Bass.
Date	October 11, 1987
Official name	28th Annual Oakwood Homes 500
Location	Concord, North Carolina, Charlotte Motor Speedway
Course	Permanent racing facility 1.5 mi (2.41 km)
Distance	334 laps, 501 mi (806.281 km)
Scheduled Distance	334 laps, 501 mi (806.281 km)
Average speed	128.443 miles per hour (206.709 km/h)
Attendance	137,200
Pole position
Driver	Bobby Allison	Stavola Brothers Racing
Time	31.462
Most laps led
Driver	Bobby Allison	Stavola Brothers Racing
Laps	142
Winner
No. 9	Bill Elliott	Melling Racing
Television in the United States
Network	SETN
Announcers	Eli Gold, Jerry Punch
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1987 Oakwood Homes 500 was the 26th stock car race of the 1987 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 28th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, October 11, 1987, before an audience of 145,000 in Concord, North Carolina, at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a 1.5 miles (2.4 km) permanent quad-oval. The race took the scheduled 334 laps to complete.

With the assist of a fast final pit stop, Melling Racing's Bill Elliott managed to take the lead from the dominant Bobby Allison, leading the final 62 laps en route to his 21st career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his fourth victory of the season.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, the aforementioned Bobby Allison and Hagan Racing's Sterling Marlin finished second and third, respectively.

Heading into the next race of the season, the 1987 AC Delco 500, Dale Earnhardt was the write-in champion for the driver's championship, only needing to start the next race to clinch the championship.^[3]

Charlotte Motor Speedway is a motorsports complex located in Concord, North Carolina, United States 13 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina. The complex features a 1.5 miles (2.4 km) quad oval track that hosts NASCAR racing including the prestigious Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend and the NEXTEL All-Star Challenge, as well as the UAW-GM Quality 500. The speedway was built in 1959 by Bruton Smith and is considered the home track for NASCAR with many race teams located in the Charlotte area. The track is owned and operated by Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI) with Marcus G. Smith (son of Bruton Smith) as track president.

• (R) denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Wednesday, October 7, at 3:00 PM EST. Each driver had one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 20 drivers in the round were 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 Thursday, October 8, at 2:00 PM EST. As with the first round, each driver had one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-40 were decided on time,^[4] 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 provisionals were given.

Bobby Allison, driving for Stavola Brothers Racing, managed to win the pole, setting a time of 31.462 and an average speed of 171.636 miles per hour (276.221 km/h) in the first round.^[5]

13 drivers failed to qualify.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dale Earnhardt 4,268 2 Bill Elliott 3,743 (-525) 3 Terry Labonte 3,611 (-657) 4 Darrell Waltrip 3,477 (–791) 1 5 Ricky Rudd 3,422 (–846) 1 6 Rusty Wallace 3,384 (–884) 1 7 Richard Petty 3,363 (–905) 3 8 Neil Bonnett 3,352 (–916) 9 Kyle Petty 3,293 (–975) 1 10 Bobby Allison 3,161 (–1,107) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.