1989 Coca-Cola 600

Race details
Race 10 of 29 in the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1989 Coca-Cola 600 program cover, featuring Darrell Waltrip, Richard Petty, and Fred Lorenzen. Artwork by NASCAR artist Sam Bass.
Date	May 28, 1989
Official name	30th Annual Coca-Cola 600
Location	Concord, North Carolina, Charlotte Motor Speedway
Course	Permanent racing facility 1.5 mi (2.41 km)
Distance	400 laps, 600 mi (965.606 km)
Scheduled Distance	400 laps, 600 mi (965.606 km)
Average speed	144.077 miles per hour (231.869 km/h)
Attendance	161,000
Pole position
Driver	Alan Kulwicki	AK Racing
Time	31.210
Most laps led
Driver	Alan Kulwicki	AK Racing
Laps	138
Winner
No. 17	Darrell Waltrip	Hendrick Motorsports
Television in the United States
Network	TBS
Announcers	Ken Squier, Johnny Hayes
Radio in the United States
Radio	Performance Racing Network

The 1989 Coca-Cola 600 was the 10th stock car race of the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 30th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, May 28, 1989, before an audience of 161,000 in Concord, North Carolina, at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a 1.5 miles (2.4 km) permanent quad-oval. The race took the scheduled 400 laps to complete. With the help of a fast final pit stop, Hendrick Motorsports driver Darrell Waltrip would manage control the final laps of the race, leading the final 80 laps to take his 77th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his fourth victory of the season.^[1][2][3][4] To fill out the top three, Hagan Racing driver Sterling Marlin and Hendrick Motorsports driver Ken Schrader would finish second and third, respectively.

Background

Charlotte Motor Speedway is a motorsports complex located in Concord, North Carolina, United States 13 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina. The complex features a 1.5 miles (2.4 km) quad oval track that hosts NASCAR racing including the prestigious Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend and the NEXTEL All-Star Challenge, as well as the UAW-GM Quality 500. The speedway was built in 1959 by Bruton Smith and is considered the home track for NASCAR with many race teams located in the Charlotte area. The track is owned and operated by Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI) with Marcus G. Smith (son of Bruton Smith) as track president.

Entry list

• (R) denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Wednesday, May 24, 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 Thursday, May 25, 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,^[5] 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.

Alan Kulwicki, driving for his own AK Racing team, would win the pole, setting a time of 31.210 and an average speed of 173.021 miles per hour (278.450 km/h) in the first round.^[6][7]

Nine drivers would fail to qualify.

Full qualifying results

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 1 Darrell Waltrip 1,479 1 2 Geoff Bodine 1,458 (-21) 2 3 Dale Earnhardt 1,430 (-49) 4 Alan Kulwicki 1,375 (–104) 3 5 Sterling Marlin 1,374 (–105) 1 6 Mark Martin 1,368 (–111) 2 7 Rusty Wallace 1,313 (–166) 2 8 Davey Allison 1,291 (–188) 4 9 Ken Schrader 1,238 (–241) 4 10 Bill Elliott 1,211 (–268) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.