1993 Coca-Cola 600

Race details
Race 11 of 30 in the 1993 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1993 Coca-Cola 600 program cover, with artwork by NASCAR artist Sam Bass.
Date	May 30, 1993
Official name	34th 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	145.504 miles per hour (234.166 km/h)
Attendance	162,000
Pole position
Driver	Ken Schrader	Hendrick Motorsports
Time	30.448
Most laps led
Driver	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Laps	152
Winner
No. 3	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Television in the United States
Network	TBS
Announcers	Ken Squier, Neil Bonnett
Radio in the United States
Radio	Performance Racing Network

The 1993 Coca-Cola 600 was the 11th stock car race of the 1993 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 34th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, May 30, 1993, before an audience of 162,000 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. At race's end, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt would manage to overcome two penalties throughout the race and come back to win his 55th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his second victory of the season.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, Hendrick Motorsports driver Jeff Gordon and Joe Gibbs Racing driver Dale Jarrett would finish second and third, respectively.

Background

The layout of Charlotte Motor Speedway, the venue where the race was held.

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.

Qualifying

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Wednesday, May 26, at 7:00 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 Thursday, May 27, at 2:30 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,^[3] 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. If needed, a past champion who did not qualify on either time or provisionals could use a champion's provisional, adding one more spot to the field.

Ken Schrader, driving for Hendrick Motorsports, would win the pole, setting a time of 30.448 and an average speed of 177.352 miles per hour (285.420 km/h) in the first round.^[4]

Seven drivers would fail to qualify.

Race results

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dale Earnhardt 1,711 2 Rusty Wallace 1,582 (-129) 3 3 Dale Jarrett 1,503 (-208) 1 4 Geoff Bodine 1,491 (–220) 1 5 Kyle Petty 1,484 (–227) 3 6 Davey Allison 1,481 (–230) 1 7 Ernie Irvan 1,435 (–276) 1 8 Morgan Shepherd 1,430 (–281) 1 9 Jeff Gordon 1,382 (–329) 1 10 Ken Schrader 1,357 (–354) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

References