​1 / 19HAMPTON, GEORGIA – JULY 12: Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts/CHOA Chevrolet, and Christopher Bell, driver of the #20 Rheem Toyota, race during the NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart at EchoPark Speedway on July 12, 2026 in Hampton, Georgia. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)(Sean Gardner, Getty Images)While most of you were sleeping, Ryan Blaney was sweeping. Heading into a “plate race” like Atlanta, where horsepower-sapping rules equalize the field, you’re always told to accept the possibility of a surprise winner — or at least a few surprising frontrunners near the end.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnd while there were a few strangers in that lead pack — hello there, SVG! — one of NASCAR’s bluebloods was wrapping up a weekend of complete dominance.HAMPTON, GEORGIA – JULY 12: Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 BODYARMOR FLASH I.V. Ford, crosses the finish line to win the NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart at EchoPark Speedway on July 12, 2026 in Hampton, Georgia. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)For the first time since William Byron did it last fall at Martinsville, Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney won the pole, both race stages and eventually the whole shebang. He led about two-thirds of the 266 laps, but had to survive a two-lap overtime finish in the wee hours of Monday morning after a rain delay of three-plus hours.Erik Jones, Austin Dillon and, yes, Shane van Gisbergen were among the “others” who joined the leaders — SVG made a particularly heroic plunge between two others on the final lap. But in the end, yet again, Atlanta didn’t reward a longshot, a trait that continues to differentiate the track from the other “plate” speedways — Talladega and Daytona.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBut — in another “yet again” — Atlanta delivered a fantastic finish.Going over replays of those final two laps again, just to sort it all out, this might be a weird thought to take away, but here goes …Thank goodness Bubba Wallace didn’t win.Or, shall we say, didn’t get to the checkers first.After Blaney was first past the long-awaited checkered flag, Bubba soon learned he was being penalized for going below the out-of-bounds stripe on the bottom of the racing surface. That’s a no-no if you go down there to pass another car, as Bubba did in going around Carson Hocevar on the final lap for second place.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBut looking at it, he didn’t actually “go around” Hocevar, a point Bubba stressed afterward. He didn’t pass him, but he did go from off Hocevar’s rear bumper to alongside him. The rules says you can’t “improve your position,” and while Bubba didn’t improve his position in the running order, he improved it physically.Maybe the verbiage needs to be tweaked.Bubba had a couple of fellow Toyota drivers behind him at different times on that final lap, so a “win” was definitely possible.Imagin