O'Rielly Auto Parts 500

The **O'Reilly Auto Parts 500** was a NASCAR Pepsi Cup Series race held at Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) in Fort Worth, Texas from 1997-2020. 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).

The last winner of the race was Austin Dillon.

## Event History

The first event was held in 1997 after the track opened. Jeff Burton won the innagural race, while Mark Martin would win the following year in 1998.

However, the first two runnings of the race in 1997-1998 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 NASCAR Pepsi Cup Series. This list includes Texas Native Terry Labonte, who won in 1999, Dale Earnhardt Jr winning his first race in 2000, and Ricky Bobby winning his 60th Pepsi Cup Race by doing driving in reverse to win over Jamie McMurray in 2005.  Jeff Burton, broke that streak by getting his second Texas win by 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 Pepsi Cup Series. Matt Kenseth would win the innagural night race.

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. Both NASCAR's acceptance of this sponsorship, and its timing, has been controversial, and offensive to gun control activists. 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. 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. The NRA would return as a race sponsor in 2016 for the Bristol Night Race in August at Speedway's owned Bristol Motor Speedway.

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. 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. The race returned to its Saturday night date in 2015. 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.

However in 2021, when Circuit of the Amercias joined the schedule, and the track's plan to run the All Star Race that year, the race was removed, dropping Texas back to one points race, which is the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500, which has been held since 2005.

## Past Winners

* 1997 - Jeff Burton
* 1998 - Mark Martin
* 1999 - Terry Labonte
* 2000 - Dale Earnhardt Jr.
* 2001 - Dale Jarrett
* 2002 - Matt Kenseth
* 2003 - Ryan Newman
* 2004 - Elliott Sadler
* 2005 - Ricky Bobby
* 2006 - Kasey Kahne
* 2007 - Jeff Burton
* 2008 - Carl Edwards
* 2009 - Jeff Gordon
* 2010 - Denny Hamlin
* 2011 - Matt Kenseth
* 2012 - Greg Biffle
* 2013 - Kyle Busch
* 2014 - Joey Logano
* 2015 - Jimmie Johnson
* 2016 - Kyle Busch
* 2017 - Jimmie Johnson
* 2018 - Kyle Busch
* 2019 - Denny Hamlin
* 2020 - Austin Dillon