1990 AC Delco 500

Race details
Race 27 of 29 in the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1990 AC Delco 500 program cover, featuring Rusty Wallace.
Date	October 21, 1990
Official name	26th Annual AC Delco 500
Location	Rockingham, North Carolina, North Carolina Motor Speedway
Course	Permanent racing facility 1.017 mi (1.636 km)
Distance	492 laps, 500.364 mi (805.257 km)
Scheduled Distance	492 laps, 500.364 mi (805.257 km)
Average speed	126.452 miles per hour (203.505 km/h)
Attendance	55,800
Pole position
Driver	Ken Schrader	Hendrick Motorsports
Time	24.769
Most laps led
Driver	Kyle Petty	SABCO Racing
Laps	207
Winner
No. 7	Alan Kulwicki	AK Racing
Television in the United States
Network	ESPN
Announcers	Bob Jenkins, Ned Jarrett, Benny Parsons
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1990 AC Delco 500 was the 27th stock car race of the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 26th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, October 21, 1990, before an audience of 55,800 in Rockingham, North Carolina, at North Carolina Speedway, a 1.017 miles (1.637 km) permanent high-banked racetrack. At race's end, owner-driver Alan Kulwicki would manage to dominate the late stages of the race to take his second career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his only victory of the season.^[1][2][3][4] To fill out the top three, Melling Racing driver Bill Elliott and Leo Jackson Motorsports driver Harry Gant would finish second and third, respectively.

In the driver's championship, second-place driver in the standings, Dale Earnhardt, was able to gain four points over first-place driver Mark Martin, dropping Martin's lead down to 45 points.^[5]

North Carolina Speedway was opened as a flat, one-mile oval on October 31, 1965. In 1969, the track was extensively reconfigured to a high-banked, D-shaped oval just over one mile in length. In 1997, North Carolina Motor Speedway merged with Penske Motorsports, and was renamed North Carolina Speedway. Shortly thereafter, the infield was reconfigured, and competition on the infield road course, mostly by the SCCA, was discontinued. Currently, the track is home to the Fast Track High Performance Driving School.

• (R) denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Thursday, October 18, 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 Friday, October 19, at 2:00 PM EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-40 would be decided on time,^[6] 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.

Ken Schrader, driving for Hendrick Motorsports, would win the pole, setting a time of 24.769 and an average speed of 147.817 miles per hour (237.888 km/h) in the first round.^[7][8]

Four drivers would fail to qualify.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Mark Martin 4,120 2 Dale Earnhardt 4,075 (-45) 3 Bill Elliott 3,716 (-404) 4 Geoff Bodine 3,700 (–420) 5 Rusty Wallace 3,479 (–641) 6 Kyle Petty 3,421 (–694) 7 Ricky Rudd 3,419 (–701) 8 Morgan Shepherd 3,344 (–776) 9 Ernie Irvan 3,309 (–811) 10 Alan Kulwicki 3,302 (–818) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.