The 1987 Budweiser 500 was the 11th stock car race of the 1987 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 19th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, May 31, 1987, before an audience of 56,000 in Dover, Delaware at Dover Downs International Speedway, a 1-mile (1.6 km) permanent oval-shaped racetrack. The race took the scheduled 500 laps to complete.
By race's end, Ranier-Lundy Racing's Davey Allison had managed to dominate the late stages of the race, leading 216 laps to take his second career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his second and final victory of the season. The victory also marked the first time a driver who had declared for NASCAR Rookie of the Year honors had won multiple races in the same season. To fill out the top three, Melling Racing's Bill Elliott and Junior Johnson & Associates' Terry Labonte finished second and third, respectively.
Dover Downs International Speedway is an oval race track in Dover, Delaware, United States that has held at least two NASCAR races since it opened in 1969. In addition to NASCAR, the track also hosted USAC and the NTT IndyCar Series. The track features one layout, a 1-mile (1.6 km) concrete oval, with 24ð banking in the turns and 9ð banking on the straights. The speedway is owned and operated by Dover Motorsports.
The track, nicknamed "The Monster Mile", was built in 1969 by Melvin Joseph of Melvin L. Joseph Construction Company, Inc., with an asphalt surface, but was replaced with concrete in 1995. Six years later in 2001, the track's capacity moved to 135,000 seats, making the track have the largest capacity of sports venue in the mid-Atlantic. In 2002, the name changed to Dover International Speedway from Dover Downs International Speedway after Dover Downs Gaming and Entertainment split, making Dover Motorsports. From 2007 to 2009, the speedway worked on an improvement project called "The Monster Makeover", which expanded facilities at the track and beautified the track. After the 2014 season, the track's capacity was reduced to 95,500 seats.
Bill Elliott, driving for Melling Racing, won the pole position, setting a time of 24.818 and an average speed of in the first round.
No drivers failed to qualify.