The 1992 Goody's 500 was the 24th stock car race of the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 44th iteration of the event. The race was originally scheduled to be held on Sunday, September 27, 1992, but was delayed to Monday, September 28 due to rain.[1] The race was held before an audience of 51,000 in Martinsville, Virginia at Martinsville Speedway, a 0.526 miles (0.847 km) permanent oval-shaped short track. The race took the scheduled 500 laps to complete. With a final crew chief call to run the final 126 laps on one set of tires, Bud Moore Engineering driver Geoff Bodine would manage to hold off the field to take his 13th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his first victory of the season.[2][3] To fill out the top three, Penske Racing South driver Rusty Wallace and King Racing driver Brett Bodine would finish second and third, respectively.
Background
Martinsville Speedway is an NASCAR-owned stock car racing track located in Henry County, in Ridgeway, Virginia, just to the south of Martinsville. At 0.526 miles (0.847 km) 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.
Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, September 25, 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 26, 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,[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. 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.
Kyle Petty, driving for SABCO Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 20.472 and an average speed of 92.497 miles per hour (148.859 km/h) in the first round.[5]