The 1988 Daytona 500 was the first stock car race of the 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 30th iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, February 14, 1988, before an audience of 135,000 in Daytona Beach, Florida at Daytona International Speedway, a 2.5 miles (4.0 km) permanent triangular-shaped superspeedway. The race took the scheduled 200 laps to complete. In the final laps of the race, Stavola Brothers Racing's Bobby Allison managed to fend off his son, Ranier-Lundy Racing's Davey Allison to the finish to take his 84th and final career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory, his only victory of the season, and his third Daytona 500 victory.^[1][2] Jackson Bros. Motorsports' Phil Parsons rounded out the top three.

Daytona International Speedway is one of three superspeedways to hold NASCAR races, the other two being Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. The standard track at Daytona International Speedway is a four-turn superspeedway that is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long. The track's turns are banked at 31 degrees, while the front stretch, the location of the finish line, is banked at 18 degrees.

Qualifying was set by the 1988 Twin 125 Qualifiers. The top two positions were set by qualifying speeds held for the Twin 125 Qualifiers held on Saturday, February 6, with the top two qualifiers in the session earning the top two positions for the Daytona 500. The rest of the starting was set in the Twin 125 Qualifiers, held on Thursday, February 11, during two races. The top 14 finishers in the first race, excluding the pole position winner, set the inside row from rows two to 15, and the top 14 finishers in the second race, excluding the outside pole position winner, set the outside row from rows two to 15. The remaining non-qualifiers set positions 31-40 based on qualifying speeds from the first qualifying session held on Saturday. If needed, up to two extra provisionals were given to teams high enough in the previous season's owner's standings that did not qualify for the race by either qualifying speed or from the Twin 125 Qualifiers.

Ken Schrader, driving for Hendrick Motorsports, managed to win the pole, setting a time of 46.434 and an average speed of 193.823 miles per hour (311.928 km/h) in Saturday's session.^[6]

27 drivers failed to qualify.