The Jack Link's 500 is a NASCAR Cup Series stock car race held at the Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama.
The race was known as the second leg of the sport's Grand Slam races from 1970 until the result of Ferko lawsuit in 2004. The race was also previously part of the Winston Million. Carson Hocevar is the defending winner of the race, having won it in 2026.
Notable races 1971: The first Talladega race under Winston sponsorship. Donnie Allison edged Bobby Allison and Buddy Baker for the win; this was Bobby's first race with Holman-Moody since 1967. 1972: David Pearson escaped a crash between Bobby Isaac and Jimmy Crawford coming to the white flag; he grabbed his first Talladega win and second career win in a Wood Brothers Mercury. 1973: A massive accident eliminated some 20 cars, leaving David Pearson to ride home almost uncontested. Jim Vandiver made up three laps to finish eighth. 1974: Pearson grabbed his third straight Winston 500 (and fourth straight for Wood Brothers Racing), while a crash on pit road led to grave injury to Don Miller of the Penske Racing team. The lead changed 53 times. 1975: The race was filled with several accidents, featured the first win for Buddy Baker since 1973 and the first Winston Cup Grand National win for team owner Bud Moore since 1971. Tragedy struck on Lap 149 when race leader Richard Petty pitted with a burning wheel bearing; his brother-in-law Randy Owens was killed when he fitted a hose to a pressurized water tank and the tank exploded. The lead changed 51 times, Five-time F1 Champion Juan Manuel Fangio was the honorary starter. 1976: Baker became the first driver to win a 500-mile race in under three hours. He drove Bud Moore's Ford to the win in 2 hours 56 minutes. 1977: The race produced 63 official lead changes and a four-car scramble on the final lap. Darrell Waltrip had the lead and on the last lap swung low to break the draft; Cale Yarborough blew past Donnie Allison and swung high on Waltrip; Waltrip sideswiped Cale and Benny Parsons dove low and raced Cale all the way to the stripe. 1978: Rain postponed the race to Mother's Day Sunday. Cale Yarborough drafted past Buddy Baker for the win. 1980: Baker stormed past sophomore Dale Earnhardt coming to the white flag for his final Talladega win. 1981: Bobby Allison fought off a late challenge from Baker, Darrell Waltrip, and Ricky Rudd; the race lead changed six times in the final six laps. 1982: Benny Parsons posted the first 200 MPH qualifying lap in NASCAR history. The race lead changed 51 times as Darrell Waltrip and Terry Labonte drafted past Parsons on the final lap. This race was also notable for the only race for a con artist using the name L. W. Wright; who finished poorly in a Music City Racing effort, then after several checks for a NASCAR license and car bounced (and a failure to qualify for the next race at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway), disappeared. 1984: The race has exceeded 40 official lead changes 18 times. In 1984 a motorsports record of 75 lead changes was set, but this record was broken in 2010 as the lead changed 88 times; this record was tied in 2011. The race was won by Cale Yarborough on a last-lap pass of Harry Gant. 1985: Bill Elliott came from nearly two laps down and ran down the field under green to take the win from Kyle Petty. 1987: On lap 22, Bobby Allison (driving the Stavola Brothers No. 22 Buick) cut a tire and his car went airborne into the catch fencing in front of the main grandstand. Some 100 feet of the fence was sheared off and Allison's car rebounded back to the track. The race was red-flagged, and track crews spent some two hours repairing the safety fence. Despite the wreckage, no drivers or spectators were seriously injured. As a direct result, the next superspeedway race (the 1987 Firecracker 400 at Daytona), saw the cars using smaller carburetors in an effort to curtail speeds. Starting in 1988, all races at Daytona and Talladega saw mandated carburetor restrictor plates, which were used until the introduction of a new aerodynamics package following the 2019 Daytona 500. Overshadowed by the frightening scene was that this race would be the first victory for Bobby Allison's son Davey. 1988: Phil Parsons' single Cup series victory which was shadowed by an incident involving A. J. Foyt and Alan Kulwicki that left Foyt suspended from NASCAR for six months. He was also fined $5,000. NASCAR's vice president of competition Les Richter reviewed the incident and lifted the suspension. However, Foyt's fine was increased to $7,500. 1990: Dale Earnhardt grabbed his first Talladega win since 1984, holding off a wildcard bid by Greg Sacks. 1991: The race was delayed until Monday due to Sunday rains. A massive battle for the lead erupted into a 20-car crash near halfway when pole-sitter Ernie Irvan got into Kyle Petty and Mark Martin; Petty suffered a shattered leg when he was hit in the door by Chad Little. The race was red-flagged for nearly an hour. Harry Gant won the race on a controversial drafting push by teammate Rick Mast who was a lap down. 1993: The last lap saw a ferocious scramble where Ernie Irvan stormed past Dale Earnhardt on the final lap. Rusty Wallace roared to third then came down on Earnhardt making contact in the tri-oval sending Wallace flipping violently several times across the finish line similar to his Daytona crash in the same year. The win was Irvan's final win for Morgan–McClure Motorsports. 1994: Dale Earnhardt won this race, and dedicated it to Three-time F1 World Champion Ayrton Senna, who died earlier that day in a crash at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy. There were two consecutive Big Ones just past the midway point: the first one happened on lap 103 in a race for third place when Todd Bodine came down on Greg Sacks and spun into Jeff Gordon. The three cars spun, with Sacks escaping, and collected eight other cars. Mark Martin had taken the worst hit, as his car was collected, shot across the infield, struck the inside wall, and plowed through a guardrail, a chain-link fence, and lastly caught by another guardrail protecting the infield road course, coming to a rest feet from a spectator area. After the field bunched up for the restart, another crash occurred in the tri-oval, when Terry Labonte, running 14th, was tapped from behind, starting a chain-reaction crash collecting at least 14 other cars in turn 1. 1996: Sterling Marlin rallied from the back of the pack three separate times to take the win. The race saw two airborne crashes; Bill Elliott flew down the backstretch in the air and suffered a leg injury that sidelined him for several races. Later Mark Martin was turned into the wall by Jeff Gordon and bounced into traffic; Ricky Craven tumbled up the Turn One banking and hit the fencing before bouncing down to the ground. 1997: Mark Martin won the fastest NASCAR race ever run at Talladega Superspeedway, and the fastest NASCAR race in history when he averaged 188.354 mph in 2 and half hours. 2000: Jeff Gordon scored his 50th career win after starting the race from 36th place, the farthest starting spot ever at Talladega. This was also the final start for the once-dominant Bud Moore Engineering (by that point known as Fenley-Moore Motorsports), though they attempted and failed to qualify for the Coca-Cola 600 later that season. 2001: Bobby Hamilton won the race after passing Tony Stewart coming to the white flag. It would be Hamilton's final victory before his death in 2007. It was the second caution-free Talladega race ever, and the first restrictor-plate race since Dale Earnhardt's death. 2002: Dale Earnhardt Jr. dominated the race, leading for 133 laps, and took home his second consecutive Talladega win, and teammate Michael Waltrip finished second, the third time the DEI Chevrolets had finished 1-2 after the Daytona races of the previous year. The race was marred by a 24 car crash on the back straightaway on lap 164, in the same location where a large crash had occurred the day before in the Busch race that had involved 30 cars. It was the largest crash ever recorded in NASCAR Cup Series competition until the following year. This was also the first Talladega spring Cup race under the "Aaron's 499" name. 2003: On lap 4, the largest crash ever recorded in the NASCAR Cup Series happened when Ryan Newman (who had suffered a very violent blow over crash at Daytona that February) blew a tire and hit the turn 1 wall, causing a cloud of smoke that collected 27 cars in all. These included Mike and Rusty Wallace, Steve Park, Mike Skinner, Bobby Labonte, Johnny Benson Jr., eventual race winner Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart, Ricky Rudd, Jeff Burton, points leader Matt Kenseth and more. After multiple trips down pit road to repair damage to his car, Earnhardt Jr. made several rallies to the front, overtaking Kenseth with three laps to go to win his fourth consecutive Talladega race. The finish was not without controversy: after the 2001 spring race (thanks in part to protestations from Jimmy Spencer over Mike McLaughlin's blocking in the Busch Series race in 2001), NASCAR ruled that the yellow lines on the bottom of the track at Talladega and Daytona were an out-of-bounds line (with any car that drops below to gain a position to be immediately black-flagged unless they gave the position back or were forced below it). As the cars reached the backstretch, Kenseth made a lane change, going to the outside to block Jimmie Johnson. Earnhardt Jr. was on the inside and was drafting with Elliott Sadler when Kenseth started making a move low to attempt to block Earnhardt; Earnhardt's left wheels went well below the line entering the apron of turn three as he passed Kenseth. NASCAR ruled that Earnhardt was forced below the line as the nose of his car had already passed the nose of Kenseth's car by the time Kenseth made the block, making it a clean pass, this even though Earnhardt was nowhere close to clearing Kenseth when he hit the turn 3 apron – what the rule was ostensibly intended to prevent. Some sanctioning bodies, such as the Indy Racing League, would have called Kenseth out for violating the blocking rule – a driver may not make two-lane changes on a straight, which is a penalty; the ethic against blocking, however, holds no weight in NASCAR given the gendered nature of the cars. The yellow line rule remained a controversial rule in the sport, with subsequent controversies in the 2008 and 2020 autumn races. Following Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s 2003 win, Hendrick Motorsports won four straight – three by Jeff Gordon and one by Jimmie Johnson. 2004: Jeff Gordon's win was marked by a spinout by Brian Vickers with 4⅓ laps to go. In the wake of a dangerous incident between Casey Mears and Dale Jarrett the previous September at New Hampshire, the beneficiary rule was adopted, prohibiting racing back to the caution. One ruling of the beneficiary rule was that if a race went past a specified point (Lap 183 in this case; five laps remaining) and had a caution, they would not throw out the red flag and stop the cars to ensure a green-flag finish. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was side by side with Gordon and attempted a pass on Gordon for the lead at the time of caution. Television replays (which override previous scoring loops when less than five laps remain) declared Gordon was still ahead. The race finished under yellow and while Gordon did his victory burnout, enraged fans littered the track with garbage to protest the finish (it was believed that Vickers' crash and the subsequent cleanup would not have taken very long to clean up). This reaction, following a similar fan bombardment of the track at Daytona International Speedway after the 2002 Pepsi 400 ended under yellow, would result in the overtime rule being instituted in the NASCAR Cup Series and Nationwide Series less than two months later.