1989 Banquet Frozen Foods 300

1989 Banquet Frozen Foods 300

Race details
Race 12 of 29 in the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1989 Banquet Frozen Foods 300 program cover, featuring Rick Mast.
Date	June 11, 1989
Official name	Inaugural Banquet Frozen Foods 300
Location	Sears Point International Raceway, Sonoma, California
Course	Permanent racing facility 2.52 mi (4.06 km)
Distance	74 laps, 186.48 mi (300.11 km)
Scheduled Distance	74 laps, 186.48 mi (300.11 km)
Average speed	76.088 miles per hour (122.452 km/h)
Attendance	53,000
Pole position
Driver	Rusty Wallace	Blue Max Racing
Time	1:40.754
Most laps led
Driver	Ricky Rudd	King Racing
Laps	61
Winner
No. 26	Ricky Rudd	King 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 1989 Banquet Frozen Foods 300 was the 12th stock car race of the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season, the fourth race of the 1989 NASCAR Winston West Series, and the inaugural iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, June 11, 1989, before an audience of 62,000 in Sonoma, California, at the Grand Prix layout of Sears Point Raceway, a 2.52 miles (4.06 km) permanent road course layout. The race took the scheduled 74 laps to complete. In the final laps of the race, King Racing driver Ricky Rudd would manage to fend off a charge from Blue Max Racing driver Rusty Wallace for the final four laps to take his 10th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his only victory of the season.^[1][2][3] To fill out the top three, the aforementioned Rusty Wallace and Melling Racing driver Bill Elliott would finish second and third, respectively.

Background

Sears International Point Raceway is one of two road courses to hold NASCAR races, the other being Watkins Glen International. The standard road course at Sears Point Raceway is a 12-turn course that is 2.52 miles (4.06 km) long;^[4] the track was modified in 1998, adding the Chute, which bypassed turns 5 and 6, shortening the course to 1.95 miles (3.14 km). The Chute was only used for NASCAR events such as this race, and was criticized by many drivers, who preferred the full layout.^[5] In 2001, it was replaced with a 70-degree turn, 4A, bringing the track to its current dimensions of 1.99 miles (3.20 km).^[6]

Entry list

• (R) denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, June 9, at 4:00 PM EST. Each driver would have one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 25 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, June 10, at 1:00 PM EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 26-40 would be decided on time,^[7] 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; which was two for entries in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series and two extra provisionals for the NASCAR Winston West Series.

Rusty Wallace, driving for Blue Max Racing, would win the pole, setting a time of 1:40.754 and an average speed of 90.041 miles per hour (144.907 km/h) in the first round.^[8][9]

Six drivers would fail to qualify.

Full qualifying results

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 1 Dale Earnhardt 1,775 1 2 Darrell Waltrip 1,666 (-109) 2 3 Rusty Wallace 1,648 (-127) 4 Geoff Bodine 1,637 (–138) 2 5 Mark Martin 1,613 (–162) 4 6 Bill Elliott 1,523 (–252) 1 7 Alan Kulwicki 1,513 (–262) 1 8 Sterling Marlin 1,502 (–273) 9 Davey Allison 1,496 (–279) 1 10 Ricky Rudd 1,486 (–289) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References