The 1988 Atlanta Journal 500 was the 29th and final stock car race of the

1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series file:DaleEarnhardt1985PoconoWrangler.jpg, Dale Earnhardt finished third in the championship. The 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series was the 40th season of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 17th modern-era Cup series. The s ...

season and the 29th iteration of the

event Event may refer to: Gatherings of people * Ceremony, an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion * Convention (meeting), a gathering of individuals engaged in some common interest * Event management, the organization of eve ...

. The race was held on Sunday, November 20, 1988, before an audience of 70,000 in

Hampton, Georgia Hampton is a city in southwestern Henry County, Georgia, United States. The population as of the 2020 census was 8,368. It is a southeastern suburb in the Atlanta metropolitan area. History The city was once known as "Bear Creek" or "Bear Cre ...

, at

Atlanta International Raceway Atlanta Motor Speedway (currently known as EchoPark Speedway for sponsorship reasons, formerly known as the Atlanta International Raceway from 1960 to 1990) is a quad-oval Oval track racing#Intermediate, intermediate speedway in Hampton, Georg ...

, a permanent asphalt quad-oval intermediate speedway. The race took the scheduled 328 laps to complete. For the battle of the race's victory,

Blue Max Racing Raymond Beadle (December 16, 1943October 20, 2014) was an American drag racer and auto racing team owner. Beadle was perhaps best known as the driver and owner of the ''Blue Max'' Top Fuel funny car. Beadle won three consecutive NHRA Funny Ca ...

Rusty Wallace Russell "Rusty" William Wallace Jr. (born August 14, 1956) is an American former NASCAR racing driver. He won the 1984 NASCAR Cup series NASCAR Rookie of the Year, Rookie of the Year and the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series, 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup ...

managed to dominate a majority of the race, leading 166 laps en route to his tenth career

NASCAR Winston Cup Series The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the NASCAR, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), the most prestigious stock car racing series in the United States. The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, ...

and his sixth and final victory of the season, earning the maximum points possible for a driver to gain in a race. To fill out the top three,

Ranier-Lundy Racing Ranier Racing with MDM, formerly known as Ranier-Lundy, was an American professional stock car racing team that last competed in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, the K&N Pro Series East, and the ARCA Racing Series. The team formerly competed ...

Davey Allison David Carl "Davey" Allison (February 25, 1961 – July 13, 1993) was an American NASCAR driver. He was best known for driving the No. 28 Texaco-Havoline Ford for Robert Yates Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. Born in Hollywood, Florida, ...

and

Stavola Brothers Racing Stavola Brothers Racing was a NASCAR racing team, owned by Bill and Mickey Stavola, and operating NASCAR Winston Cup team from 1984 through 1998. The team won the 1988 Daytona 500 with Bobby Allison behind the wheel of the No. 12 Miller High Lif ...

's Mike Alexander finished second and third, respectively. In the battle for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship, championship leader

Bill Elliott William Clyde Elliott Sr. (born October 8, 1955), also known as "Awesome Bill from Dawsonville", "Million Dollar Bill", or "Wild Bill" is an American former professional stock car racing driver. He last competed in the Superstar Racing Experienc ...

was able to defend his lead in the championship, needing an 18th place or better finish in order to guarantee the championship. While Elliott was not a contender for the race's victory, suffering numerous problems during the race, he was able to maintain a consistent position running around 11th-15th position, finishing 11th to secure the championship, winning the championship over Wallace by 24 points. The race was the final start for 3-time

Winston Cup The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the NASCAR, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), the most prestigious stock car racing series in the United States. The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, ...

champion

Cale Yarborough William Caleb Yarborough (March 27, 1939 – December 31, 2023) was an American NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver and owner, businessman, farmer, and rancher. He was the first driver in NASCAR history to win three consecutive championships, winn ...

, who managed to round out his driving career with a Top 10 finish.

Background

Atlanta International Raceway is a 1.522-mile race track in

, United States, 20 miles (32 km) south of

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

. It has annually hosted

stock car races since its inauguration in 1960. The venue was bought by

Speedway Motorsports Speedway Motorsports, LLC is an American company that owns and manages auto racing facilities that host races sanctioned by NASCAR, NHRA, World of Outlaws and other racing series. The company was founded by Bruton Smith and has its headquarters ...

in 1990. In 1994, 46

condominiums A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual own ...

were built over the northeastern side of the track. In 1997, to standardize the track with Speedway Motorsports' other two intermediate ovals, the entire track was almost completely rebuilt. The frontstretch and backstretch were swapped, and the configuration of the track was changed from oval to quad-oval, with a new official length of where before it was . The project made the track one of the fastest on the

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

circuit.

Entry list

* (R) - denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, November 18, 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 Saturday, November 19, at 10:30 AM 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, 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.

, driving for

, managed to win the pole, setting a time of 30.525 and an average speed of in the first round. 11 drivers failed to qualify.

Full qualifying results

Race results

Standings after the race

;Drivers' Championship standings * Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References

{{NASCAR on ESPN 1988 in sports in Georgia (U.S. state) 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series NASCAR races at Atlanta Motor Speedway November 1988 sports events in the United States