1990 Banquet Frozen Foods 300


The 1990 Banquet Frozen Foods 300 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing event that took place on June 10, 1990, at Sears Point International Raceway in Sonoma, California.
Mike Chase, Butch Gilliland, and Jack Sellers would make their introductions into the NASCAR Cup Series in this event while Stan Barrett and Ted Kennedy would leave the Cup Series after this event.

Race report

A grand total of 44 American-born drivers participated in this 74-lap event. Hershel McGriff was the unfortunate last-place finisher due to a problematic stock car engine on the second lap. While Jack Sellers was the last man to actually finish the event, a faulty engine on lap 70 prevented Morgan Shepherd from finishing anywhere except in the middle of the pack. The average green flag run was determined to be 6 laps; with slightly more than 32% of the entire race being run under a caution flag. Race-related accidents and vehicles stalling out on the relatively long road course track where the majority of the reasons behind the yellow flag laps.
Ricky Rudd had two tire issues in the mid section of this one but came back to finish third; he was running second at the end until Mark Martin passed him and began to quickly close on Rusty. However, the final caution ended his chances of catching the #27 vehicle. Martin also himself had issues, making contact with Dale Earnhardt on a restart early on just as Rudd had his first tire issue.
After two hours and forty-five minutes of racing, Rusty Wallace would defeat Mark Martin under the race's final caution flag; Wallace's high-speed training here paid off with this being the first of his two trips to victory lane in NASCAR Cup series action on the California road course. Amongst the drivers who failed to qualify for the race were Jimmy Means and Mike Hickingbottom. Mark Martin would maintain a 62-point lead for the 1990 Winston Cup Series championship against Morgan Shepherd after this event was through. This would be Rusty's last road course until 1996 at this track, then the last one of his career. It was a very road course heavy early career for Rusty then the wins dried up on road courses after that.
Vehicles in this race ran speeds averaging up to ; making it the slowest NASCAR Cup Series event in the history of Sonoma Raceway.
West Series driver and occasional Truck Series racer Terry Fisher was competitive all race and ended up a more-than-respectable 15th on the lead lap.
After this race, Mark Martin had a 136-point lead over Dale Earnhardt who was 4th in points after this race. Mark didn't lose the championship because of the penalty at Richmond. He lost it because Earnhardt dominated the rest of the year and took the championship away from him.
Individual earnings for each driver ranged from the winner's share of $69,100 to the last-place finisher's share of $3,325. NASCAR officials were authorized to hand out a sum of $443,457 to all the drivers who qualified for this racing event.

Top 10 finishers

Timeline

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