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Date September 29, 1996 (1996-09-29) Location North Wilkesboro Speedway, North Wilkesboro, North Carolina Course Permanent racing facility
0.625 mi (1.006 km) Distance 400 laps, 250 mi (402.336 km) Weather Temperatures up to 66 °F (19 °C); wind speeds up to 6.9 miles per hour (11.1 km/h) Average speed 96.837 mph (155.844 km/h) | ||
The 1996 Tyson Holly Farms 400 was the twenty-seventh stock car race of the 1996 NASCAR Winston Cup Series. It was held on September 29, 1996 at North Wilkesboro Speedway in Wilkes County, North Carolina. The 400-lap race was won by Jeff Gordon of the Hendrick Motorsports team after he started from second position. Dale Earnhardt finished second and Dale Jarrett came in third.
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The victory was Gordon's tenth of the season, and the nineteenth of his career. It was the last NASCAR race to be held at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
Background
Before the race Jeff Gordon led the Drivers' Championship with 3,903 points, eighty-one ahead of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Terry Labonte in second, with Dale Jarrett a further eighty-one points adrift in third. Dale Earnhardt was fourth on 3,562, and Mark Martin was a further seventy-nine behind in fifth place. Martin was the race's defending champion.
It was announced shortly beforehand that the Tyson Holly Farms 400 would be the last NASCAR race held at North Wilkesboro Speedway after the track was sold to promoters Bruton Smith and Bob Bahre following the death of its previous owner Enoch Staley in 1995. North Wilkesboro's two races would be taken over by Smith's Texas Motor Speedway in the spring and Bahre's New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the fall starting from 1997 as part of a schedule realignment.
Post-race
The result meant Gordon extended his lead in the Drivers' Championship, ahead of Labonte and Jarrett. Earnhardt and Martin rounded out the top five positions. The race took two hours. thirty-four minutes and fifty-four seconds to complete, and the margin of victory was 1.73 seconds.