The Subway 400 was the second race of the NASCAR Winston Cup Series season until 2004, held a week after the Daytona 500. This 400-mile annual race was sponsored by Subway and was held at North Carolina Speedway since 1966. From 1966 to 1995, a 500-mile race was held; the race was known as the Peach Blossom 500, the Carolina 500, and the Goodwrench 500. In 1996, the race was shortened to its current distance of 400 miles; the 400 mile race was called the Goodwrench Service 400, the GM Goodwrench Service Plus 400, the Dura Lube/Big K 400, the Dura Lube/Kmart 400, the Dura Lube 400, and the Subway 400. Until the 2004 Nextel Cup season, two annual races were held at Rockingham. After the 2003 season, the fall race — which was held in November — was moved to California Speedway, to be held on the lucrative Labor Day weekend. This displaced the Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, which moved to November 2004 before being removed from the schedule completely. The changes were part of the trend of less races being held in the southeast and a broader distribution across the United States. Though the spring date was not directly transferred to California, NASCAR moved up the first California race to the traditional spring Rockingham date the week after Daytona. This resulted in some criticism because teams had to travel cross-country for the second race as most spend two weeks in Daytona and are based in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. The draw for Rockingham was that teams got to stay close to home right after Daytona before traveling for the next race. The 2004 Subway 400 had one of the closest finishes in NASCAR history. Nextel Cup rookie, Kasey Kahne, in just his second series start, lost the race to Matt Kenseth by inches at the line. The exciting finish proved to be NASCAR's last stand at Rockingham, as the race, were removed from the schedule permanently after that due to the Ferko lawsuit.
1977: Crashes galore kept the average speed to 97 MPH as Petty took his sixth Carolina 500 win.
1979: Just two weeks after their crash in the Daytona 500, Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison crashed while battling for the lead just 10 laps into the race, collecting several other cars; Darrell Waltrip and Richard Petty, both involved in the wreck, were pointedly critical of Yarborough's role. Bobby Allison took the win.
1981: Darrell Waltrip outlasted Petty and Cale for his first big track win with Junior Johnson.
1983: Petty edged Bill Elliott for his first win in seventeen months.
1985: Elliott suffered a leg injury in a hard crash, as Neil Bonnett edged Harry Gant in a photo finish, the second straight Rockingham race to end in a photo finish, and second straight heartbreaker for Gant.
2002: Matt Kenseth ended a two-year victory drought after escaping a multicar melee on the backstretch when Jeff Gordon spun out Casey Atwood and four-other cars piled in.
