O'Reilly Auto Parts 500

The O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 is a NASCAR Cup Series stock car race held at Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) in Fort Worth, Texas. Even though it is advertised as a "500-mile" race, because TMS is a track that is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) in length, the actual race distance is 501 miles (806.3 km). Austin Dillon is the defending race winner.

O'Reilly Auto Parts 500

NASCAR Cup Series
Venue	Texas Motor Speedway
Location	Fort Worth, Texas, United States
Corporate sponsor	O'Reilly Auto Parts
First race	1997
Distance	501 miles (806 km)
Laps	334 (Stages 1/2: 105 each Final stage: 124)
Previous names	Interstate Batteries 500 (1997) Texas 500 (1998) Primestar 500 (1999) DirecTV 500 (2000) Harrah's 500 (2001) Samsung / RadioShack 500 (2002–2006) Samsung 500 (2007–2009) Samsung Mobile [phone]) NRA 500 (2013) Duck Commander 500 (2014–2016)
Most wins (driver)	Kyle Busch (3)
Most wins (team)	Roush Fenway Racing (7)
Most wins (manufacturer)	Ford (10)
Circuit information
Surface	Asphalt
Length	1.5 mi (2.4 km)
Turns	4

Race history

The first two runnings of the race were controversial, crash-strewn affairs, with universal criticism that the track's design was one groove; Kenny Wallace argued, "They're so busy building condos they don't have time to fix the racetrack."

There were ten different winners in the first ten races, the longest such streak for any NASCAR track in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. This list includes Texas Native Terry Labonte, who won in 1999, and Dale Earnhardt Jr winning his first race in 2000. Jeff Burton, the winner of the inaugural race, broke that streak by getting his second Texas win in a last lap pass in 2007. In 2011, the race became a Saturday night event, whereas before it was always a Sunday afternoon race. This was done since the night race at Phoenix was moved to February and became a day race. The 2011 race was run on April 9, 2011 and was the first scheduled night race of the season, and in Texas Motor Speedway history for the Cup Series.

In 2013, NASCAR became involved in controversy when the National Rifle Association (NRA) began to sponsor the race; although race sponsorships are negotiated with the track owner, not NASCAR itself, the sanctioning organization has final approval and did not object to the sponsorship.[1][2][3][4] Both NASCAR's acceptance of this sponsorship, and its timing, has been controversial, and offensive to gun control activists.[5][6][7][8] Because of the sponsorship, Senator Chris Murphy asked Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation owns Fox Sports, which was scheduled to air the race, to not broadcast it.[9] Fox broadcast the race as scheduled, not least because failure to do so would have been a breach of the network's contract with NASCAR. However, Fox only used the official sponsored name once per hour (the minimum mandated by NASCAR) and otherwise referred to it generically (in this case as the "Texas 500"), the network's usual practice when a race's title sponsor does not buy ads during the race broadcast; the NRA reportedly did not seek to purchase any such ads.[1] The NRA would return as a race sponsor in 2016 for the Bristol Night Race in August at Speedway's owned Bristol Motor Speedway.[10]

In 2014, the race returned to being a Sunday afternoon race because of the NCAA Men's basketball Final Four games being held at AT&T Stadium in nearby Arlington, so that the race occurs on a day in between tournament games.[11] On February 6, 2014, Duck Commander, the business that is the subject of the TV show Duck Dynasty, bought the naming rights for the race.[12] The race returned to its Saturday night date in 2015.[13] In 2017, the race would once again return to Sunday afternoon and the race was renamed under a new sponsorship deal with O'Reilly Auto Parts.[14]

Since 2002, the trophy awarded to the winner has been cowboy boots, a white cowboy hat, and a pair of six-shooters to fire off in victory lane. The winner of the event, and the same goes for the Fall race, bolts their name onto a Wall of Champions that has their name engraved on a plate using a laser engraver.

Grandfather clause

Samsung sponsored the race from 2002–2012, while RadioShack was previously a co-sponsor. The joint sponsorship was grandfathered in 2003 by NASCAR's grandfather clause when Nextel became a NASCAR sponsor, as they banned rival wireless sponsorships (Nextel used Motorola exclusively); the ban was lifted after the 2005 merger of Sprint and Nextel because Sprint is sold at RadioShack, and Sprint offers Samsung products.

Past winners

Year	Date	No.	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Race Distance		Race Time	Average Speed (mph)	Report
						Laps	Miles (km)
1997	April 6	99	Jeff Burton	Roush Racing	Ford	334	501 (806.281)	4:00:16	125.111	Report
1998	April 5	6	Mark Martin	Roush Racing	Ford	334	501 (806.281)	3:39:47	136.771	Report
1999	March 28	5	Terry Labonte	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	334	501 (806.281)	3:28:21	144.276	Report
2000	April 2	8	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Dale Earnhardt, Inc.	Chevrolet	334	501 (806.281)	3:49:12	131.152	Report
2001	April 1	88	Dale Jarrett	Robert Yates Racing	Ford	334	501 (806.281)	3:31:59	141.804	Report
2002	April 8	17	Matt Kenseth	Roush Racing	Ford	334	501 (806.281)	3:31:01	142.453	Report
2003	March 30*	12	Ryan Newman	Penske Racing	Dodge	334	501 (806.281)	3:43:28	134.517	Report
2004	April 4	38	Elliott Sadler	Robert Yates Racing	Ford	334	501 (806.281)	3:36:30	138.845	Report
2005	April 17	16	Greg Biffle	Roush Racing	Ford	334	501 (806.281)	3:51:08	130.055	Report
2006	April 9	9	Kasey Kahne	Evernham Motorsports	Dodge	334	501 (806.281)	3:37:55	137.943	Report
2007	April 15	31	Jeff Burton	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	334	501 (806.281)	3:39:41	143.359	Report
2008	April 6	99	Carl Edwards	Roush Fenway Racing	Ford	339*	508.5 (818.351)	3:30:41	144.814	Report
2009	April 5	24	Jeff Gordon	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	334	501 (806.281)	3:25:22	146.372	Report
2010	April 19*	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	334	501 (806.281)	3:25:34	146.23	Report
2011*	April 9	17	Matt Kenseth	Roush Fenway Racing	Ford	334	501 (806.281)	3:21:26	149.231	Report
2012	April 14	16	Greg Biffle	Roush Fenway Racing	Ford	334	501 (806.281)	3:07:12	160.577	Report
2013	April 13	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	334	501 (806.281)	3:27:40	144.751	Report
2014	April 7*[15]	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	340*	510 (820.765)	3:39:02	134.191	Report
2015	April 11	48	Jimmie Johnson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	334	501 (806.281)	3:33:57	140.5	Report
2016	April 9–10*	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	334	501 (806.281)	3:37:16	138.355	Report
2017	April 9	48	Jimmie Johnson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	334	501 (806.281)	3:24:18	147.137	Report
2018	April 8	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	334	501 (806.281)	3:32:07	141.714	Report
2019	March 31	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	334	501 (806.281)	3:16:11	153.224	Report
2020	July 19	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	334	501 (806.281)	3:38:57	137.292	Report

Notes

• 2003, 2010, & 2014: Race moved from Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon due to rain.
• 2008 and 2014: Race extended due to a NASCAR Overtime finish
• 2011: First scheduled night event in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series history at Texas Motor Speedway.
• 2016: Race was delayed by rain for 2 hours. Race was completed early Sunday morning at 2:45 am CT.
• 2020: Race postponed from March 29 to July 19 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Multiple winners (drivers)

# Wins	Driver	Years Won
3	Kyle Busch	2013, 2016, 2018
2	Jeff Burton	1997, 2007
	Matt Kenseth	2002, 2011
	Greg Biffle	2005, 2012
	Jimmie Johnson	2015, 2017
	Denny Hamlin	2010, 2019

Multiple winners (teams)

# Wins	Team	Years Won
7	Roush Fenway Racing	1997, 1998, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2012
5	Joe Gibbs Racing	2010, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2019
4	Hendrick Motorsports	1999, 2009, 2015, 2017
2	Robert Yates Racing	2001, 2004
	Team Penske	2003, 2014
	Richard Childress Racing	2007, 2020

Manufacturer wins

# Wins	Manufacturer	Years Won
10	Ford	1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2014
7	Chevrolet	1999, 2000, 2007, 2009, 2015, 2017, 2020
5	Toyota	2010, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2019
2	Dodge	2003, 2006

References

1. Ryan, Nate (2013-03-04). "National Rifle Association sponsors NASCAR Sprint Cup race". Usatoday.com. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
2. Short Bus (2013-03-08). "NASCAR NRA 500". Daily Kos. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
3. ASSOCIATED PRESS (2013-03-05). "NRA Nascar sponsorship: Texas race will be known as NRA 500 - Associated Press". Politico.Com. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
4. "NRA to be title sponsor for NASCAR Cup race in Texas". Fox News. March 5, 2013. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
5. Zach Bowman RSS feed Google+. "Conn. Senator Murphy urges NASCAR to reconsider NRA race sponsorship [w/poll]". Autoblog.com. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
6. "New MURPHY URGES NASCAR TO REVERSE DECISION TO NAME NEW RACE NRA 500". Politicalnews.me. Archived from the original on 2014-03-28. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
7. Populi, Vox. "Vox Populi: 'Now that the NRA is sponsoring a NASCAR race, I'm glad I stopped following NASCAR years ago.'". savannahnow.com. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
8. Terkel, Amanda (April 8, 2013). "NRA 500 NASCAR Race Will Be Free From Gun Group Propaganda, Says Organizer". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
9. Gendreau, LeAnne; Schulz, Sam (2013-04-11). "Conn. Senator to Rupert Murdoch: Don't Air NRA-500 Race". KNTV. Retrieved 2013-04-11.
10. Pockrass, Bob (2015-11-06). "NRA will sponsor NASCAR race at Bristol Motor Speedway". ESPN. Retrieved 2016-04-07.
11. "Texas Motor Speedway alters race schedule with NCAA Final Four in Dallas"
12. Owens, Jeff (February 6, 2014). "Duck Dynasty stars to sponsor NASCAR race at Texas". Sporting News. Archived from the original on February 8, 2014. Retrieved February 6, 2014.
13. "NASCAR reveals 2015 schedules for national series". NASCAR. August 26, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
14. "O'Reilly Auto Parts Signs Multi-year Entitlement Deal for Annual Spring NASCAR Sprint Cup Race". Texas Motor Speedway. 2016-05-16. Archived from the original on 2016-06-19. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
15. Hawkins, Stephen (April 6, 2014). "Rain postpones NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway". Yahoo! Sports. Retrieved April 6, 2014.

External links

• NASCAR Commentators Crews and Networks
• Ratings For NASCAR's Spring Texas Race Since 1997

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