1987 Winston Western 500
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 28 of 29 in the 1987 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season | |||
Layout of Riverside International Raceway
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| Date | November 8, 1987 | ||
| Official name | Winston Western 500 | ||
| Location | Riverside International Raceway, Riverside, California | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility 2.700 mi (4.345 km) |
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| Distance | 119 laps, 311.8 mi (501.7 km) | ||
| Weather | Mild with temperatures approaching 77 °F (25 °C); wind speeds up to 6 miles per hour (9.7 km/h) | ||
| Average speed | 98.035 miles per hour (157.772 km/h) | ||
| Attendance | 53,000 | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Hendrick Motorsports | ||
| Most laps led | |||
| Driver | Geoffrey Bodine | Hendrick Motorsports | |
| Laps | 92 | ||
| Winner | |||
| No. 27 | Rusty Wallace | Blue Max Racing | |
| Television in the United States | |||
| Network | TBS | ||
| Announcers |
Ken Squier Benny Parsons |
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The 1987 Winston Western 500 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing event that was held on November 8, 1987, at Riverside International Raceway in Riverside, California.
Rick Hendrick, Irv Hoerr and Tommy Kendall would make their respective debuts in the NASCAR Cup Series while George Follmer, Harry Goularte, Jim Robinson and Glen Steurer would leave the NASCAR Cup Series after this event. After this race, NASCAR would never hold the Winston Cup finale at Riverside International Speedway ever again; it eventually closed on July 2, 1989.
Bob Howard also entered (and at least practiced) his #89 Pennzoil Oldsmobile for this race. However, he had to withdraw from qualifying for this event due to personal reasons.
Approximately 18% of this event was held under a caution flag; with each green flag stretch lasting about 20 laps on average. 42 drivers would qualify for this 119-lap event.
Drivers who failed to qualify were St. James Davis, Trevor Boys, Reno Fontana, Jack Sellers, John Krebs, Bob Howard and Brad Noffsinger. Geoffrey Bodine was considered to be the poster boy for this race with his qualifying speed of up to 117.934 miles per hour (189.796 km/h). Rusty Wallace would ultimately race past Benny Parsons to the finish line by slightly more than a second. This would unfortunately mark the final win for the Pontiac 2+2. Only Rusty Wallace was able to win races with that model vehicle, and all of them were either on short tracks or road courses. Ironically, the Pontiac 2+2 was designed to be better aerodynamically at superspeedways such as Talladega and Daytona.
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