The 1990 Miller Genuine Draft 400 was the 22nd stock car race of the 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 33rd iteration of the event. The race was held on Sunday, September 9, 1990, in Richmond, Virginia, at Richmond International Raceway, a 0.75 miles (1.21 km) D-shaped oval. The race took the scheduled 400 laps to complete. Gambling on fuel strategy, Richard Childress Racing driver Dale Earnhardt would manage to defend the field in a final three-lap restart to the finish to take his 47th career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory and his eighth victory of the season.^[1][2][3][4] To fill out the top three, Roush Racing driver Mark Martin and Hendrick Motorsports driver Darrell Waltrip would finish second and third, respectively.

Richmond International Raceway (RIR) is a 3/4-mile (1.2 km), D-shaped, asphalt race track located just outside Richmond, Virginia in Henrico County. It hosts the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series. Known as "America's premier short track", it formerly hosted a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, an IndyCar Series race, and two USAC sprint car races.

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Friday, September 7, at 3:00 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, September 8, at 11:00 AM EST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 21-34 would be decided on time,^[5] 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.

Ernie Irvan, driving for Morgan–McClure Motorsports, would win the pole, setting a time of 22.524 and an average speed of 119.872 miles per hour (192.915 km/h) in the first round.^[6][7] Two drivers would fail to qualify.