1980 CRC Chemicals 500
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| Race details[1][2] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 25 of 31 in the 1980 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season | |||
|
Layout of Dover International Speedway | |||
| Date | September 14, 1980 | ||
| Official name | CRC Chemicals 500 | ||
| Location | Dover Downs International Speedway, Dover, Delaware | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 1.609 km (1.000 miles) | ||
| Distance | 500 laps, 500.0 mi (804.6 km) | ||
| Weather | Very hot with temperatures reaching up to 88 °F (31 °C); wind speeds up to 7 miles per hour (11 km/h) | ||
| Average speed | 116.024 miles per hour (186.723 km/h) | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Junior Johnson & Associates | ||
| Most laps led | |||
| Driver | Darrell Waltrip | DiGard Motorsports | |
| Laps | 264 | ||
| Winner | |||
| No. 88 | Darrell Waltrip | DiGard Motorsports | |
| Television in the United States | |||
| Network | untelevised | ||
| Announcers | none | ||
The 1980 CRC Chemicals 500 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing event that took place on September 14, 1980, at Dover Downs International Speedway, Dover, Delaware. The NASCAR Winston Cup Series was also plagued with top teams running big engines and finishing in third place to avoid inspection around the early-1980s.
This would be the last of 26 wins for Darrell Waltrip at DiGard, Inc.. Darrell won many races but the team struggled with reliability issues which cost Darrell every year except 1979. Darrell had a contract with DiGard that ran through 1982 but with the help of his father-in-law, Junior Johnson, and sponsor Mountain Dew he was able to get out of the contract at the end of 1980 and finally win his first Winston Cup title in 1981.
Dover Downs International Speedway, now called Dover International Speedway, is one of five short tracks to hold NASCAR races; the others are Bristol Motor Speedway, Richmond International Raceway, Martinsville Speedway, and Phoenix International Raceway.[3] The NASCAR race makes use of the track's standard configuration, a four-turn short track oval that is 1 mile (1.6 km) long.[4] The track's turns are banked at twenty-four degrees, and both the front stretch (the location of the finish line) and the backstretch are banked at nine degrees.[4]