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.
And 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.
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.
But — in another “yet again” — Atlanta delivered a fantastic finish.
First Gear: What if Bubba Wallace had gotten there first?
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.
But 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.
Imagine the uproar that would have ensued, both for and against such a penalty — assuming, of course, there would’ve been a penalty called if it meant taking away a win. Yes, that’s Regan Smith in the back with his hand raised (you’ll have to research that one on your own).
Second Gear: NASCAR points race squeezed after Atlanta
Remember the one-man breakaway toward the regular-season points championship?
Remember when it was replaced by a two-man race?
Well, guess what. It might now be a three-man battle with six races left before the playoff chase.
A week ago, Denny Hamlin’s lead was 44 points over Tyler Reddick and 113 over third-place Blaney.
Well, Reddick finally grabbed the yoke and broke that spiral, finishing eighth at Atlanta, which doesn’t sound that great until you look at his past five weeks. Along the way Sunday/Monday, he took two second-place stage finishes to grab an additional 18 points, while Hamlin finished 12th and earned just two stage bonus points.
And the top two is now a top three. Hamlin is now just 24 points up on Reddick and 65 on Blaney. If you recall how quickly Reddick’s romp became a healthy Hamlin lead, you know a lot can happen between now and the end of Week 26.
Third Gear: Joey Logano on wrong side of the bubble
Yeah, it’s just a number, but 20 is a rather round one. Feels like a real milepost on the way to the end of a 26-race regular season.
So after 20 races of 2026, and with the 26-race cutoff pretty much within reach, it seems like a good time to gaze upon the bubble, where Erik Jones currently teeters. It’s not exactly neck-and-neck around the 16th position, the final playoff spot, but it’s close enough to change dramatically on any given week.
From 14 through 16 — Austin Cindric, SVG and Jones — there’s a 24-point difference. From 16 through 18 — Jones, Joey Logano, Ryan Preece — the margin is 26 points. And I know what you’re thinking …
Joey Logano is slumming it down on the bubble?
Frankly, this is the third straight year he’s muddled along through the regular season — by the standards of a three-time Cup champ, anyway. Of course, two years ago, he caught fire in the playoffs and won that third title, but only after a bit of a slog through 26 races.
Maybe a jolt is coming, but maybe not.
Fourth Gear: 30 years later, North Wilkesboro gets a points race
The Cup Series kicks off the six-week run to the end of the regular season at North Wilkesboro this coming weekend. And, yes, not long ago we thought that sentence would never be written or said again.
But the North Wilkesboro rebirth, which presumably topped out with a three-year run as host to the All-Star Race (2023-25), has found another gear with the little track’s return to the regular-season schedule.
The North Carolina facility hosted its first big-league NASCAR race in 1949. Bob Flock beat runner-up Lee Petty and the margin of victory was given a long-ago description: “100 yards.” No automatic timing and scoring back then.
The last Cup race was in 1996, when Jeff Gordon led over half the 400 laps and beat Dale Earnhardt by 1.7 seconds, or what appeared to be about 50 yards. Good Lord, has it really been 30 years?
— Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Ryan Blaney in a NASCAR sweep at Atlanta. Bubba Wallace crosses a line. And bubble talk
Reporting by Ken Willis, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Ken Willis, Daytona Beach News-Journal | USA TODAY Network
