The Bank of America 500 is a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race that is hosted annually at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, United States, with the other one being the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend, the 600-mile (970 km) race. The race is held in the middle of October, as part of the Chase for the Sprint Cup and it is a 501-mile (806 km) annual race, Prior to 1966, the race was a 400.5-mile (644.5 km) event.
Thanks in large part to the ratings boost NBC received from the 2002 race being run in primetime hours, NASCAR made a decision to move the race date from Sunday afternoon to Saturday night beginning in 2003. NBC retained their rights to broadcast the race, unlike in most of the night events aired in their part of the season's contract which normally aired on TNT. With the move, then-Lowe's Motor Speedway became one of only two tracks in NASCAR to have two night dates on the schedule.
In 2005, the start was delayed by the finish to the Notre Dame-Southern California college football game which ran late. While the game was in its final minutes, NBC, the broadcaster of both events, had the race engines start and the pace laps proceed. As the pace car pulled off the track to pit road to start the race, NBC had just switched coverage from the game to the race, and the broadcast began as the field took the green flag.
1971: The race was shortened due to rain.
1999: Race postponed from Sunday to Monday due to rain.
2005 & 2007: The race was extended due to a green–white–checker finish.
2015 & 2016: Race postponed from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon due to rain.
1964: Fred Lorenzen took lead with two laps to go after Richard Petty, who led 188 laps, blew a tire and crashed. Paul Goldsmith led 71 laps before blowing his engine.
1965: Lorenzen won for the second straight year after a wild three-abreast battle with Curtis Turner and Dick Hutcherson for first. The race was a tragic affair as a massive crash claimed the life of Harold Kite.
1970: Leeroy Yarbrough took what turned out to be his final Grand National win.
1971: Bobby Allison in the Holman-Moody Mercury battled Charlie Glotzbach, driving the Chevrolet Monte Carlo fielded by track president Richard Howard. Allison took the lead on Lap 177 and led when rain shortened the race at Lap 238. Leeroy Yarbrough drove a second Howard Chevrolet, reuniting with team manager Junior Johnson, for whom Leeroy had driven earlier that 1971 season.
1973: Controversies plagued the weekend. Charlie Glotzbach won the pole in Hoss Ellington's Chevrolet but NASCAR discovered a moveable restrictor plate after qualifying and put Glotzbach to the back of the field. Buddy Baker was pulled out of the race 228 laps in by team owner Nord Krauskopf when NASCAR said it wanted to reinspect the #71 Dodge after the race. David Pearson and Glotzbach crashed 40 laps in, leaving Petty, Cale Yarborough, and Bobby Allison in charge. Yarborough and Petty put Allison three laps down en route to the 1-2 finish. But following the race controversy ensued over the postrace inspection of the top three cars; Allison's Chevy cleared after one hour but six hours after the inspection NASCAR announced the results for Yarborough's #11 would receive further study, and Allison claimed to have seen Petty's team remove the air filter from the car before it could be inspected; track promoter Richard Howard threatened a lawsuit if the race results were changed. Allison claimed the top two finishers were illegal and threatened to sue NASCAR; Petty asserted only three of his engine's eight cylinders were checked; a later meeting between Allison and Bill France, Jr. settled the controversy.
1974: The race set an event record for lead changes at 47. David Pearson lost two laps 150 miles in but made up the deficit and surged to the win. The race was marred by ten-car crash in which Marty Robbins suffered serious facial injuries, a two-car crash involving Grant Adcox and Ramo Stott, and a pit fire in Richard Petty's pit.
1975: Petty took the win for a season sweep at Charlotte. The 500 was the final race for track under promotion of Richard Howard as Bruton Smith would take control of the speedway the following January.
1976: Donnie Allison surprised the field by winning, his first Winston Cup win since 1971 and the first for team owner Hoss Ellington. The engine measured slightly over the 358 cubic inch limit; after lengthy discussion the engine was allowed to cool down and it measured below 358 cubic inches; Ellington quipped, "This one's legal. We left all the cheater stuff at Darlington."
1978: Bobby Allison broke out of a competitive race to win handily. The lead changed 40 times. David Pearson won the pole, his 11th straight Charlotte pole.
1980: Dale Earnhardt edged Buddy Baker and Cale Yarborough and solidified his point lead over Yarborough with three races to go in the season. The win was Earnhardt's fifth of his second career Winston Cup season. The weekend was dominated by controversy between Darrell Waltrip and the DiGard Racing team as Waltrip announced he was leaving the team after the season despite threats of legal action by team owners the Gardner brothers to retain him. Waltrip spun out after breaking a sway bar piece, then fell out with engine failure, angrily demanding afterward he needed to "get away from these Gardners."
1981: Darrell Waltrip's late-season victory surge included leading the final 61 laps of the 1981 500. Bobby Allison finished second and after leading the series in August was now trailing by 58 laps. Harry Gant led Lap 3 before his engine erupted in the first turn.
1982 Gant broke through to his first superspeedway win as he edged Bill Elliott in a ten-lap showdown after Bobby Allison, who led 280 laps, blew his engine. A ten-car crash erupted when Dale Earnhardt hooked Richard Petty into a spin.
1983: The race was marred by controversy involving an outsized engine for race winner Richard Petty as well as suspicion about runner-up Darrell Waltrip; Petty was subsequently fined $35,000 and 104 NASCAR points.
1985: Cale Yarborough lost a lap on five separate occasions and made them up all five times for his final NASCAR win.
1993: Ernie Irvan led race-record 328 laps for his second win with Robert Yates. NASCAR shaved spoiler size to five inches and raised the front airdam a few inches out of concern for escalating track speeds and believing, following driver lobbying, that reducing downforce would force drivers to slow down for the turns. The change did not reduce speeds.
1994: Dale Jarrett stole the win after engine failure eliminated Geoff Bodine and a late crash eliminated Ricky Rudd and Jeff Gordon; the win was Jarrett's final win with Joe Gibbs Racing.
1996: Terry Labonte dominated and erased a point gap of over 100 to Jeff Gordon, who fell out with engine failure. The race was marred by a brutal multicar crash involving Ernie Irvan when Irvan spun out and was center-punched by John Andretti.
2000: Bobby Labonte broke out of a fierce fight with Dale Earnhardt, Ricky Rudd, and Jeremy Mayfield to grab the win. The weekend was marred by a sudden shortage of tires available from Goodyear, but the race went with no problems with tires. The lead changed 46 times, the first Charlotte race to break 40 lead changes since 1988.
2002: Subbing for injured regular Sterling Marlin, Jamie McMurray grabbed his first win in his second career NASCAR start. A major crash erupted in the trioval and brought out a furious response from team owner Richard Childress.
2014: Harvick shot ahead of Jeff Gordon to win the race. “Oh, we came here and tested thinking that this was going to be the hardest round to get through because of Talladega,” Harvick said. “There’s so much that you can’t control there. We wanted to try to control the things that we could control. We felt like Kansas and here (Charlotte) were playing to our strengths; and just see where it fell after that once we get to the next round. So I’m really proud of everybody at SHR. I’m really proud of all my guys on this team. I just can’t thank everybody enough.” "I'm really proud of that finish, really proud of that effort," Gordon said. " ... Kevin was tough. I knew he was going to be tough once he got out there." Keselowski and Hamlin were angry with one another on the cool-down lap. Keselowski made contact with Matt Kenseth on pit road, while Matt had his seatbelt unbuckled and inadvertently rear-ended Tony Stewart, who then backed into the 2 car. In the garage area, Hamlin continued to confront Keselowski by throwing a towel at him before Nascar officials and crew members escorted Hamlin to the team trailer. While Keselowski was walking to his hauler, he was attacked from behind by Kenseth until he was pulled out by Keselowski's crew chef Paul Wolfe. “When the last yellow came out, he got the wave around and when he came by, he swung by my car and tore the whole right front off of it,’’ Keselowski said of Kenseth. We restarted fifth with no right front on it and fell back to 16th and ruined our day. For some reason after the race (Hamlin) stopped in front of me and tried to pick a fight. I don’t know what that was about. He swung and hit at my car. I figure if we’re going to play car wars under the yellow and after the race, I’m going to play, too. Those guys can dish it out and they can’t take it. I gave it back to them and they want to fight. (Brad Keselowski) was doing something with Denny (Hamlin), I don't know," Kenseth said. "The race had ended and he's running into cars on the cool down lap. I mean, the race is over and he comes down pit road and drives into the side of me -- that's inexcusable. He's a champion and he's supposed to know better." "When you see Matt Kenseth mad enough to fight, you know that this is intense because that's way out of character for him," Harvick said. "Every moment matters in this Chase, and Matt Kenseth knew that that one particular moment could have been the end of his Chase."
2015: Matt Kenseth made contact with another car on the restart and made an unscheduled stop to fix the right-front wheel well. To add insult to injury, he was black-flagged for having too many crew members over the wall and was forced to serve a drive-through penalty. Kurt Busch kicked off a cycle of green flag stops on lap 231. Logano pitted on lap 232 and gave the lead to Austin Dillon. He pitted the next lap and gave the lead to Jeff Gordon. He pitted on lap 234 and gave the lead to Clint Bowyer. He pitted the next lap and handed the lead to Sam Hornish, Jr. The ninth caution of the race flew with 95 laps to go for a single-car wreck in turn 3. Matt Kenseth suffered a right-front tire blowout and slammed the wall. He said that he's taking the Contender Round "one race at a time to be honest with you. I mean, you do the best you can every week and if this is the best I can do it’s amazing I have a job. These are never the kind of days you want to have for sure, but it’s just one of those days. We shouldn’t have ever been back there to start with. My mistakes and they cost us today. So we’ll just move on from this and get ready for Kansas.” Hornish pitted under the caution and handed the lead back to Joey Logano.
2016: A multi-car wreck occurred during a restart with 76 laps to go on the frontstretch that started when Martin Truex Jr., wanting to push Austin Dillon ahead of race leader Johnson, got him loose, sent his car down the track and slammed hard into the inside barrier just past the exit of pit road. Elliott braked and swerved to the right to avoid Dillon. Unfortunately, Busch swerved to the left at the same time and hooked him into the wall and was rammed by Ryan Blaney and Paul Menard. After being released from the infield care center, Dillon said he was "fine, it just sucks. We will have to work hard the next two weeks to get the points back. I felt like I got to third gear pretty clean and then the next thing – I feel contact and I am spinning through the grass. It’s part of it and we took two tires there and you know the risk when you get into it. You just hope that doesn’t happen obviously. I got to third without spinning the tires, and I felt like we got contacted.” Elliott said he thought "the No. 3 they stayed out on tires and tried to get some track position. The No. 78 ended up getting him out of shape and then after that I tried to check up. I don’t think the No. 18 saw it, got into us and got us turned the wrong way. It happens we just got to go and try to have more runs like that next week.” The race was red-flagged for 10 minutes and 48 seconds. Johnson beat Kenseth on the restart to take the lead and drove on to score the victory.
The race was shown on TBS from at least the mid-1980s to 2000. From 2002 to 2006, it was shown on NBC, and from 2007 to 2014, it was on ABC.
The 2002 race was also known for beginning a practice where, if a race broadcast on a network was running long and ran into prime-time hours, the broadcast would not switch to cable. In this case, the race began as scheduled in the early afternoon but was delayed for hours due to weather. NBC did not move the race to TNT, and broadcast the race in its entirety; the race ended early Sunday evening with Jamie McMurray winning in only his second NASCAR Winston Cup start. Since ESPN took over the rights to the race and to most of NBC and TNT's former NASCAR package, that policy has been discontinued. Starting in 2015 the race will move back to NBC, after the network signed a 10-year, $4.4 Billion dollar deal with NASCAR, NBC has the rights for the final 20 races of the season(14 of 20) from the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway and the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, this event was on ABC for several years as part of ESPN before the departure, In 2017, due to broadcasting changes, the race will move from NBC to NBCSN.
The 2005 running of the race drew ire from fans due to the broadcast policy in which a college football game cut into NBC's NASCAR slot. Due to the excessive length, the pre-race show was not broadcast at all and the network finally started it as the field came to the green flag to begin the race. This race was known for the levigation disaster that made the track extremely fast causing the tires to blister and blow out after about 30 laps. It was due to this that Charlotte was repaved in early 2006 in time for their May events.
The 2014 race was known for the broadcast policy that drew the ire of fans once again. Because of the excessive length of the Baylor-TCU ESPN College Football game, the race would be shifted to ESPNEWS. But the station was airing an NBA preseason game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that ran long into overtime. The race broadcast started on Lap 27.
2001: Originally scheduled to be broadcast on NBC, the race was moved to TNT, because NBC News needed to broadcast President George W. Bush's announcement of the War in Afghanistan and the War on Terror.
2015: Originally scheduled to be broadcast on NBC, the race was moved to NBCSN due to the postponement of the race.
