The Subway 400 was the second race of the NASCAR Winston Cup Series season until 2004, held a week after the Daytona 500.

This displaced the Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, which moved to November 2004 before being removed from the schedule completely (replaced by a second date at Texas Motor Speedway).

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.

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 (and the track, for that matter), were removed from the schedule permanently after that due to the Ferko lawsuit.