1986 Motorcraft 500

The 1986 Motorcraft 500 was the fourth stock car race of the 1986 NASCAR Winston Cup Series and the 27th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, March 16, 1986, before an audience of 71,800 in Hampton, Georgia, at Atlanta International Raceway, a 1.522 mi permanent asphalt quad-oval intermediate speedway.

Faced with a final restart with four laps left in the race, Race Hill Farm Team's Morgan Shepherd managed to hold off the dominant driver of the day, Richard Childress Racing's Dale Earnhardt in what is considered at the time to be a major upset. The victory was Shepherd's second career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his only victory of the season. To fill out the top three, the aforementioned Earnhardt and Hagan Enterprises' Terry Labonte finished second and third, respectively.

Background
Atlanta Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta International Raceway) is a 1.522-mile race track in Hampton, Georgia, United States, 20 miles (32 km) south of Atlanta. It has annually hosted NASCAR Winston Cup Series stock car races since its inauguration in 1960.

The venue was bought by Speedway Motorsports in 1990. In 1994, 46 condominiums were built over the northeastern side of the track. In 1997, to standardize the track with Speedway Motorsports' other two intermediate ovals, the entire track was almost completely rebuilt. The frontstretch and backstretch were swapped, and the configuration of the track was changed from oval to quad-oval, with a new official length of 1.54 mi where before it was 1.522 mi. The project made the track one of the fastest on the NASCAR circuit.

Entry list

 * (R) - denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying
Qualifying was originally scheduled to be split into two rounds. The first round was scheduled to be held on Friday, March 14, at 1:00 PM EST. Originally, the first 20 positions were going to be determined by first round qualifying, with positions 21-40 meant to be determined later in the day at 2:00 PM EST. However, due to rain, the first round was cancelled. As a result, qualifying was both delayed for over two hours and condensed into one round for all starting grid spots in the race. 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.

Dale Earnhardt, driving for Richard Childress Racing, won the pole, setting a time of 32.096 and an average speed of 170.713 mph.

Six drivers failed to qualify.

Standings after the race

 * Drivers' Championship standings
 * Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.