1988 Atlanta Journal 500

, the circuit where the race was held. Atlanta International Raceway is a 1.522-mile race track in Hampton, Georgia, United States, 20 miles (32 km) south of Atlanta. It has annually hosted NASCAR Winston Cup Series stock car races since its inauguration in 1960. The venue was bought by Speedway Motorsports in 1990. In 1994, 46 condominiums were built over the northeastern side of the track. In 1997, to standardize the track with Speedway Motorsports' other two intermediate ovals, the entire track was almost completely rebuilt. The frontstretch and backstretch were swapped, and the configuration of the track was changed from oval to quad-oval, with a new official length of where before it was . The project made the track one of the fastest on the NASCAR circuit. Entry list • (R) - denotes rookie driver. == Qualifying ==

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, November 18, at 2:00 PM EST. Each driver had one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 20 drivers in the round were guaranteed a starting spot in the race. If a driver was not able to guarantee a spot in the first round, they had the option to scrub their time from the first round and try and run a faster lap time in a second round qualifying run, held on Saturday, November 19, at 10:30 AM EST. As with the first round, each driver had one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-40 were decided on time, and depending on who needed it, a select amount of positions were given to cars who had not otherwise qualified but were high enough in owner's points; up to two were given. Rusty Wallace, driving for Blue Max Racing, managed to win the pole, setting a time of 30.525 and an average speed of in the first round. 11 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. ==References==