The race was marred by two separate major incidents throughout the race. On lap 70, a five-car incident featured Active Motorsports driver Jimmy Horton flipping over the protective outside wall in turn one, meant to keep cars within the track. While Horton wasn't seriously hurt, in the same accident, owner-driver and Birmingham, Alabama native Stanley Smith would suffer a basilar skull fracture and partial paralysis of the right side of his body after slamming his car into the turn one wall, spilling blood on most of his racing firesuit.[3][4] After being taken to a Birmingham hospital, Smith would recover for 40 days until he was eventually discharged.[5] The second major crash would occur on lap 132, when Neil Bonnett's car would go airborne, flip over the damaged car of Ted Musgrave, and smash into the protective catch-fence on the track's front-stretch that was meant to protect spectators. Nine fans would be injured due to the crash. Bonnett, making a one-off appearance since retiring in 1990, was uninjured and would eventually decide to commentate the rest of the race for CBS.[6]
Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, July 22, at 4:00 PM EST. Each driver would have one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 20 drivers in the round would be guaranteed a starting spot in the race. If a driver was not able to guarantee a spot in the first round, they had the option to scrub their time from the first round and try and run a faster lap time in a second round qualifying run, held on Saturday, July 23, at 11:30 AM EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-40 would be decided on time,[7] and depending on who needed it, a select amount of positions were given to cars who had not otherwise qualified but were high enough in owner's points; up to two provisionals were given. If needed, a past champion who did not qualify on either time or provisionals could use a champion's provisional, adding one more spot to the field.
Bill Elliott, driving for Junior Johnson & Associates, would win the pole, setting a time of 49.772 and an average speed of 192.397 miles per hour (309.633 km/h) in the first round.[8]
The Diehard 500 was covered by CBS in the United States. Ken Squier, two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Ned Jarrett and 1980 race winner Neil Bonnett called the race from the broadcast booth, Bonnett was driving in this race and reported from the car in the race but returned to the booth after his accident. Mike Joy and David Hobbs handled pit road for the television side. This would be the last race Neil Bonnett would call for CBS as he was scheduled to be with CBS for 1994 but was killed practicing for the 1994 Daytona 500. Due to the two hour red flag caused by Bonnett flipping his car and damaging the fence, CBS left during the red flag to air some of their same day coverage of the Tour de France but returned to Talladega to live coverage of the rest of the race.
