The 1986 Valleydale 500 was the fifth stock car race of the 1986 NASCAR Winston Cup Series and the 26th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, April 6, 1986, before an audience of 34,200 in Bristol, Tennessee, at Bristol International Raceway, a 0.533 miles (0.858 km) permanent oval-shaped racetrack.

By race's end, Blue Max Racing's Rusty Wallace managed to dominate the late stages of the race, leading the final 101 laps to take his first career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his first victory of the season.^[1][2] To fill out the top three, Bud Moore Engineering's Darrell Waltrip and Junior Johnson & Associates' Darrell Waltrip finished second and third, respectively.

The Bristol Motor Speedway, formerly known as Bristol International Raceway and Bristol Raceway, is a NASCAR short track venue located in Bristol, Tennessee. Constructed in 1960, it held its first NASCAR race on July 30, 1961. Despite its short length, Bristol is among the most popular tracks on the NASCAR schedule because of its distinct features, which include extraordinarily steep banking, an all concrete surface, two pit roads, and stadium-like seating. It has also been named one of the loudest NASCAR tracks.

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, April 4, at 4:00 pm EST. Each driver would have one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 15 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, April 5, at 12:30 pm EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 16-30 would be decided on time,^[3] 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 were given.

Geoff Bodine, driving for Hendrick Motorsports, won the pole, setting a time of 16.707 and an average speed of 114.850 miles per hour (184.833 km/h) in the first round.^[4]

Six drivers failed to qualify.