The 1987 Goody's 500 was the 24th stock car race of the 1987 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 39th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 27, 1987, before an audience of 41,000 in Martinsville, Virginia at Martinsville Speedway, a 0.526 miles (0.847km) permanent oval-shaped short track. The race took the scheduled 500 laps to complete.
Heading into the final lap of the race, the three cars of Hendrick Motorsports' Darrell Waltrip, Richard Childress Racing's Dale Earnhardt, and Junior Johnson & Associates' Terry Labonte engaged in a battle for the victory. Heading into the final two turns of the race, Waltrip bumped into the bumper of Labonte's car, sending Labonte out of control. Labonte hit Earnhardt's car, letting Waltrip pass the two of them to take his 71st career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his only victory of the season.[1][2] To fill out the top three, the aforementioned Earnhardt and Labonte finished second and third, respectively.
Martinsville Speedway is a NASCAR-owned stock car racing track located in Henry County, in Ridgeway, Virginia, just to the south of Martinsville. At 0.526 miles (0.847km) 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 Thursday, September 24, at 2:00 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 Friday, September 25, at 1:30 PM EST. As with the first round, each driver had one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-30 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 were given.
Geoff Bodine, driving for Hendrick Motorsports, managed to win the pole, setting a time of 20.759 and an average speed of 91.218 miles per hour (146.801km/h) in the first round.[5]
Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.
Notes
↑ Bryan was unable to qualify the car in qualifying. As Bryan was a rookie, he was not allowed to start the car with an owner's points provisional. As a result, his father, Buddy Baker, replaced him for the race.[3]
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