The 160 lap, 400 miles (640 km) event was held on Saturday night, July 4 (Independence Day in the USA) at the 2.5 miles (4.0 km) Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.

The 1998 event, which was to have been run on Independence Day, was postponed due to the wildfires in Florida that year and was raced in October.

The event also commemorated the 25th Anniversary to the date of Richard Petty's 200th – and final – victory in this race in 1984.

Qualifying was rained out for the second straight weekend, so again, the NASCAR rulebook was used to set the order of the field, and Tony Stewart would be on the pole.

The first big one happened in the second half of the race, when Kasey Kahne got into David Stremme, bouncing him off the wall and collecting at least a dozen cars.

[2] Instantly after stopping a stunned, dazed, irritated, impatient Kyle Busch climbed out of his car and tried to follow Tony to victory lane for confrontation but was led away by officials.

Kyle contended that his friend intentionally crashed him but changed his mind in 2010 after a talk with Tony and deciding it was best to put it behind them.