The 1989 Daytona 500 was the first stock car race of the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 31st iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, February 19, 1989, before an audience of 150,000 in Daytona Beach, Florida at Daytona International Speedway, a 2.5 miles (4.0 km) permanent triangular-shaped superspeedway. The race took the scheduled 200 laps to complete. Gambling on fuel mileage, Hendrick Motorsports driver Darrell Waltrip would manage to run the last 53 laps on one tank of fuel to take his 74th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory, his first and only Daytona 500 victory, and his first victory of the season.[1][2][3][4] To fill out the top three, Hendrick Motorsports driver Ken Schrader and Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt would finish second and third, respectively.
Daytona International Speedway is one of three superspeedways to hold NASCAR races, the other two being Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. The standard track at Daytona International Speedway is a four-turn superspeedway that is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long. The track's turns are banked at 31 degrees, while the front stretch, the location of the finish line, is banked at 18 degrees.
Qualifying was set by the 1989 Twin 125 Qualifiers. The top two positions were set by qualifying speeds held for the Twin 125 Qualifiers held on Saturday, February 11, with the top two qualifiers in the session earning the top two positions for the Daytona 500. The rest of the starting was set in the Twin 125 Qualifiers, held on Thursday, February 16 during two races. The top 14 finishers in the first race, excluding the pole position winner, would set the inside row from rows two to 15, and the top 14 finishers in the second race, excluding the outside pole position winner, would set the outside row from rows two to 15. The remaining non-qualifiers would set positions 31-40 based on qualifying speeds from the first qualifying session held on Saturday. If needed, up to two extra provisionals were given to teams high enough in the previous season's owner's standings that did not qualify for the race by either qualifying speed or from the Twin 125 Qualifiers.
Ken Schrader, driving for Hendrick Motorsports, would win the pole, setting a time of 45.686 and an average speed of 196.996 miles per hour (317.034 km/h) in Saturday's session.[7]
18 drivers would fail to qualify.
