1990 Pontiac Excitement 400

1990 Pontiac Excitement 400

Race details
Race 2 of 29 in the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1990 Pontiac Excitement 400 program cover, with artwork by NASCAR artist Sam Bass.
Date	February 25, 1990
Official name	36th Annual Pontiac Excitement 400
Location	Richmond, Virginia, Richmond International Raceway
Course	Permanent racing facility 0.75 mi (1.21 km)
Distance	400 laps, 300 mi (482.803 km)
Scheduled Distance	400 laps, 300 mi (482.803 km)
Average speed	92.158 miles per hour (148.314 km/h)
Attendance	50,000
Pole position
Driver	Ricky Rudd	Hendrick Motorsports
Time	22.572
Most laps led
Driver	Rusty Wallace	Blue Max Racing
Laps	148
Winner
No. 6	Mark Martin	Roush Racing
Television in the United States
Network	TBS
Announcers	Ken Squier, Chris Economaki
Radio in the United States
Radio	Motor Racing Network

The 1990 Pontiac Excitement 400 was the second stock car race of the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 36th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, February 25, 1990, before an audience of 50,000 in Richmond, Virginia, at Richmond International Raceway, a 0.75 miles (1.21 km) D-shaped oval. The race took the scheduled 400 laps to complete. In the final laps of the race, Roush Racing driver Mark Martin would manage to make a late-race charge to the front, passing for the lead with 16 laps left in the race to take his second career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his first victory of the season.^[1][2][3][4] To fill out the top three, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt and Hendrick Motorsports driver Ricky Rudd would finish second and third, respectively.

After the race, Martin's car was found to have an illegal carburetor spacer, with the spacer being half an inch wider than the maximum allowance of 2 inches (5.1 cm) NASCAR had set according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. In response, NASCAR officials decided to fine Martin USD$40,000 (adjusted for inflation, USD$93,286), the largest fine ever levied in NASCAR history up to that point, along with 46 driver's championship points.^[5][6] The punishment was considered extremely harsh and severe by NASCAR media along with Martin's team, in which Martin said in an interview with The Charlotte Observer "It's like running a stop sign when nothing's coming, but a policeman catches you... you shouldn't get a ticket for it, but you broke the law and you have to pay for it. But this is like getting the death penalty for it."^[7][8]

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, February 22, at 3:00 PM EST. Each driver would have one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 20 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 Saturday, February 23, at 11:00 AM EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-34 would be decided on time,^[9] 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.

Ricky Rudd, driving for Hendrick Motorsports, would win the pole, setting a time of 22.572 and an average speed of 119.617 miles per hour (192.505 km/h) in the first round.^[10][11]

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 4 1 Dale Earnhardt 340 2 2 Ricky Rudd 335 (-5) 3 Bill Elliott 330 (-10) 3 4 Rusty Wallace 306 (–34) 7 5 Dick Trickle 287 (–53) 4 6 Morgan Shepherd 280 (–61) 7 7 Jimmy Spencer 261 (–79) 7 8 Derrike Cope 256 (–84) 9 9 Brett Bodine 254 (–86) 5 10 Darrell Waltrip 248 (–92) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.