During Speedweeks, on the first day of practice for the Daytona 500, legendary driver Neil Bonnett crashed in turn four. Bonnett died at Halifax Hospital from massive head injuries. Three days later, reigning Goody's Dash Series champion, Rodney Orr, making his Cup debut, lost control and spun in turn two. His car flipped and hit the catch fence with the roof above the driver's seat. Orr was killed instantly. Following these tragedies, a worried Rusty Wallace gave a lecture, calling out the drivers for over-aggression on the track, during the pre-race Drivers Meeting. In his lecture, Wallace was extremely critical of the drivers taking bold risks such as gambling on their tires, making overly-aggressive moves early in the races, and not taking much time to fix any damages to their car on pit road. In conclusion, he told the drivers, "Use your damn heads!" He was given a round of applause from the drivers and teams after his lecture. In the middle of the Goodyear-Hoosier tire war, Hoosier released teams from their contracts three days following Orr's death. Hoosier received blame from some observers as the tires were the only linking factor between the two deaths. However, the criticism was purely speculative and NASCAR never blamed the tires for the deaths and never offered an official cause of the accident for either fatality. An investigation done by the Orlando Sentinel blamed Orr's crash on a broken right-rear shock absorber mounting bracket. That same part was reportedly broken on Bonnett's car. NASCAR refused to comment on the outside investigation.
The yellow flag was displayed with 60 laps to go when Morgan Shepherd spun, which made for interesting fuel mileage strategy. Earnhardt, Irvan, and Mark Martin came into the pits again for extra fuel. 1990 winner Derrike Cope led the field at the restart, only to be passed by Marlin and Irvan a couple of laps later. Irvan took the lead with 43 laps to go, but on Lap 180 he suddenly got loose in Turn 4. He recovered the car, but Marlin retook the lead as Irvan fell back to 7th. With 12 laps to go, Irvan was repassed by Martin, whom he had passed a few laps before, but with eight laps to go the Ford duo tag-teamed Jeff Gordon for 3rd and 4th. The two Fords swapped positions with five laps to go, and Irvan passed Terry Labonte in the tri-oval with three laps to go. But Sterling Marlin's Morgan-McClureChevrolet was untouchable, and he finally won a Winston Cup race in his 279th start after eight second-place finishes. He broke Dave Marcis' previous record for most starts before his first Cup win. Martin ran out of fuel with two to go, but he managed to take the white flag to complete 199 laps.
