1987 Wrangler Jeans Indigo 400

1987 Wrangler Jeans Indigo 400

Race details
Race 22 of 29 in the 1987 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1987 Wrangler Jeans Indigo 400 program cover, featuring Richard Petty.
Date	September 13, 1987
Official name	30th Annual Wrangler Jeans Indigo 400
Location	Richmond, Virginia, Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway
Course	Permanent racing facility 0.542 mi (0.872 km)
Distance	400 laps, 216.8 mi (348.905 km)
Scheduled Distance	400 laps, 216.8 mi (348.905 km)
Average speed	67.074 miles per hour (107.945 km/h)
Attendance	30,000
Pole position
Driver	Alan Kulwicki	AK Racing
Time	20.746
Most laps led
Driver	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Laps	220
Winner
No. 3	Dale Earnhardt	Richard Childress Racing
Television in the United States
Network	SETN
Announcers	Eli Gold, Jerry Punch
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1987 Wrangler Jeans Indigo 400 was the 22nd stock car race of the 1987 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 30th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 13, 1987, before an audience of 30,000 in Richmond, Virginia, at Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway, a 0.542 miles (0.872 km) D-shaped oval. The race took the scheduled 400 laps to complete.

Coming back from a penalty and avoiding several wrecks, Richard Childress Racing's Dale Earnhardt managed to dominate the late stages of the race, leading 156 of the final 219 laps to take his 31st career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his 11th and final victory of the season. With the victory, Earnhardt was able to increase his driver's championship lead over Bill Elliott to 608 points, a lead that was seen as virtually insurmountable with seven races left in the season. To fill out the top three, Hendrick Motorsports' Darrell Waltrip and Bud Moore Engineering's Ricky Rudd finished second and third, respectively.^[1][2]

Richmond International Raceway (RIR) is a 3/4-mile (1.2 km), D-shaped, asphalt race track located just outside Richmond, Virginia in Henrico County. It hosts the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series. Known as "America's premier short track", it formerly hosted a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, an IndyCar Series race, and two USAC sprint car races.

• (R) denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, September 11, at 3:00 PM EST. Each driver had one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 20 drivers in the round were 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 Saturday, September 12, at 11:30 AM EST. As with the first round, each driver had one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-30 were 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.

Alan Kulwicki, driving for his own AK Racing team, managed to win the pole, setting a time of 20.746 and an average speed of 94.052 miles per hour (151.362 km/h) in the first round.^[4]

Four drivers failed to qualify.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dale Earnhardt 3,706 2 Bill Elliott 3,098 (-608) 3 Terry Labonte 3,019 (-687) 4 Rusty Wallace 2,942 (–764) 5 Darrell Waltrip 2,898 (–808) 6 Ricky Rudd 2,878 (–828) 7 Neil Bonnett 2,842 (–864) 1 8 Richard Petty 2,808 (–898) 1 9 Kyle Petty 2,772 (–934) 10 Ken Schrader 2,658 (–1,048) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.