1978 Delaware 500
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 24 of 30 in the 1978 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season | |||
Layout of Dover International Speedway
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| Date | September 17, 1978 | ||
| Official name | Delaware 500 | ||
| Location | Dover Downs International Speedway, Dover, Delaware | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility 1.000 mi (1.609 km) |
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| Distance | 500 laps, 500.0 mi (804.6 km) | ||
| Weather | Warm with temperatures reaching a maximum of 79 °F (26 °C); wind speeds up to 9.9 miles per hour (15.9 km/h) | ||
| Average speed | 119.323 miles per hour (192.032 km/h) | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | McDuffie Racing | ||
| Most laps led | |||
| Driver | Bobby Allison | Bud Moore Engineering | |
| Laps | 267 | ||
| Winner | |||
| No. 15 | Bobby Allison | Bud Moore Engineering | |
| Television in the United States | |||
| Network | untelevised | ||
| Announcers | none | ||
The 1978 Delaware 500 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series (now Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series) racing event that took place on September 17, 1978, at Dover Downs International Speedway (now Dover International Speedway) in the American community of Dover, Delaware.
By 1980, NASCAR had completely stopped tracking the year model of all the vehicles and most teams did not take stock cars to the track under their own power any more.
Dover Downs International Speedway, now called Dover International Speedway, is one of five short tracks to hold NASCAR races; the others are Bristol Motor Speedway, Richmond International Raceway, Martinsville Speedway, and Phoenix International Raceway. The NASCAR race makes use of the track's standard configuration, a four-turn short track oval that is 1 mile (1.6 km) long. The track's turns are banked at twenty-four degrees, and both the front stretch (the location of the finish line) and the backstretch are banked at nine degrees.
Five hundred laps were completed on a paved oval track spanning 1.000 mile (1.609 km). The race took four hours, eleven minutes, and twenty seconds to complete. Three cautions were given out by NASCAR for eighteen laps. Thirty thousand stock car racing fans attended this live event. Notable speeds were: 119.323 miles per hour (192.032 km/h) for the average speed and 135.480 miles per hour (218.034 km/h) for the pole position speed (accomplished by J.D. McDuffie).
Bobby Allison defeated Cale Yarborough by 11½ seconds. Other notable names in the event included: Darrell Waltrip (now a NASCAR on Fox broadcaster), Richard Childress (now the owner of Richard Childress Racing), Richard Petty, and J.D. McDuffie. J.D. McDuffie established the pole position while using tires manufactured by the McCreary Tire Company. This pole position start also got him a guaranteed ride in the first running of the Busch Clash (now the Sprint Unlimited); Buddy Baker would ultimately win that race on February 1979. The Busch Clash consisted of a racing event with a single twenty-lap (50-mile) green flag sprint with no pit stops required.
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