The 1992 Daytona 500 was the first stock car race of the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 34th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, February 16, 1992, before an audience of 140,000 in Daytona Beach, Florida at Daytona International Speedway, a 2.5 miles (4.0 km) permanent triangular-shaped superspeedway. The race took the scheduled 200 laps to complete.
Leading for over half of the race, Robert Yates Racing's Davey Allison managed to avoid a major wreck in the first half of the race that took out several contenders. Afterwards, Allison managed to dominate the latter stages of the race, leading the final 98 laps en route to his 14th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory, his first victory of the season, and his only career Daytona 500 victory. To fill out the top three, Wood Brothers Racing's Morgan Shepherd and Bud Moore Engineering's Geoff Bodine finished second and third, respectively.
Background
Daytona International Speedway is one of three superspeedways to hold NASCAR races, the other two being Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. The standard track at Daytona International Speedway is a four-turn superspeedway that is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long. The track's turns are banked at 31 degrees, while the front stretch, the location of the finish line, is banked at 18 degrees.
Entry list
(R) denotes rookie driver.
Qualifying
Qualifying was set by the 1992 Gatorade Twin 125 Qualifiers. The top two positions were set by qualifying speeds held for the Twin 125 Qualifiers held on Sunday, February 9, with the top two qualifiers in the session earning the top two positions for the Daytona 500. The rest of the starting was set in the Twin 125 Qualifiers, held on Thursday, February 14, during two races. The top 14 finishers in the first race, excluding the pole position winner, set the inside row from rows two to 15, and the top 14 finishers in the second race, excluding the outside pole position winner, set the outside row from rows two to 15. The remaining non-qualifiers set positions 31-40 based on qualifying speeds from the first qualifying session held on Sunday. If needed, up to two extra provisionals were given to teams high enough in the previous season's owner's standings that did not qualify for the race by either qualifying speed or from the Twin 125 Qualifiers.
Sterling Marlin, driving for Junior Johnson & Associates, managed to win the pole, setting a time of 46.823 and an average speed of in Sunday's session.
15 drivers failed to qualify.
Full qualifying results
Race results
Standings after the race
Drivers' Championship standings
Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.