Quaker State 400 (Atlanta)

The Quaker State 400 presented by Walmart is a NASCAR Cup Series stock car race that was run annually each March at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia from 1960 to 2010 and as a July race since 2021. The race is one of two races currently held at the Atlanta track every season, with the Ambetter Health 400 being the other and run at various times (originally November, later October and currently the second race of the season as of 2024).

The race was originally 500.5 mi on the 1.54-mile quad-oval (325 laps). In August 2010, Atlanta Motor Speedway announced that they would no longer run this spring race, instead choosing to focus on the Labor Day weekend race at the track beginning in 2011. The end of the Atlanta 500 was followed by the addition of a race at Kentucky Speedway starting in 2011, primarily due to litigation by Kentucky's former owners and a settlement of that trial.

On September 30, 2020, Speedway Motorsports announced Kentucky would lose its Cup race and the event be moved back to Atlanta, to be held July 11, 2021. The race will only be 260 laps (400.4 miles), owing to Shell's prior sponsorship agreements and the first since 1966 to be held at the track at 400.4 mi. The event was held under the lights in 2023, and will be the opening race of the playoffs race in 2024, and in 2025, it will play host to the opening round of the NASCAR in-season tournament.

Notable races

 * 1960: The first race at Atlanta International Raceway (now Atlanta Motor Speedway) was won by Bobby Johns in a 1960 Pontiac.
 * 1961: Bob Burdick led 44 laps to his only career Grand National win. Pole sitter Marvin Panch led 127 laps but faded to sixth, while Fred Lorenzen led 87 laps but fell out with engine failure. Rookie Bobby Allison finished 37th.
 * 1964: Fred Lorenzen led the last 168 laps and 206 in all, en route to a two-lap win amid an epidemic of tire failures and resultant crashes; Paul Goldsmith led the first 54 laps but blew a tire, smashed the guardrail, and flipped over.
 * 1966: Jim Hurtubise led the final 58 laps in his only career Grand National win.
 * 1971: A. J. Foyt outdueled Richard Petty for his fifth career win.
 * 1972: Bobby Allison posted the first win for Chevrolet on a superspeedway since the 1960s, as he held off a strong challenge from A. J. Foyt and Bobby Isaac.
 * 1974: Cale Yarborough grabbed the lead when David Pearson pitted under green and was trapped by an ill-timed yellow; the race was shortened to 450 mi due to the energy crisis.
 * 1975: After winning the Dixie 500 four times, Richard Petty edged Buddy Baker for his first Atlanta 500 win.
 * 1976: David Pearson lost a lap early and spent 225 laps getting it back before winning. Cale Yarborough lost four laps on a green-flag stop and got three of them back to finish third.
 * 1977: Richard Petty, David Pearson, and Cale Yarborough finished 1–2–3 as they combined to lead all 328 laps. Yarborough finished third after his brakes wore out and at times he had to be stopped by Richard Childress' car on pit road. Only two yellows flew.
 * 1979: Buddy Baker caught a late yellow, got four tires, and won in a late sprint, his first win since 1976.
 * 1980: Sophomore Dale Earnhardt took the lead with 30 to go after Cale Yarborough broke while chasing down Bobby Allison. USAC stock car racer Rusty Wallace finished second. Donnie Allison crashed out of the lead with sophomore Terry Labonte in what became his final race for car owner Hoss Ellington.
 * 1981: Cale Yarborough posted his first win for car owner M.C. Anderson, but the story of the race was a loud protest by Bobby Allison over a NASCAR-mandated reduction of the spoiler of his 1981 Pontiac Lemans to reduce the car's aerodynamic efficiency. Car owner Harry Ranier threatened to boycott the race but got no support in the garage area and relented to the rule change.
 * 1982: After Dale Earnhardt fell out, rain hit the race and Darrell Waltrip edged Richard Petty to the race-ending yellow.
 * 1983: Cale Yarborough drove a backup car to victory for the second time in 1983. He'd wrecked his primary Ranier Chevy a week earlier in Rockingham and used a car that had been a show car. It was also the second time he won on his birthday.
 * 1984: Benny Parsons posted his final career win.
 * 1986: Morgan Shepherd outran Dale Earnhardt for his first win in five years and the first of three wins at Atlanta.
 * 1987: Dale Earnhardt fell out late and Ricky Rudd edged Benny Parsons and Rusty Wallace for his first win on an oval longer than a mile.
 * 1989: Darrell Waltrip came back from nearly a lap down to win. During a mid-race caution, Waltrip was slowed by the pace car picking up the wrong leader during pitstops and was trapped barely on the lead lap. The mishap led to the implementation of the rule closing pit road when the yellow comes out; the rule was designed to stop cars from pitting before taking the yellow, which was blamed for scoring mistakes in the days of manual lap scoring. Also, during this race, Richard Petty's car caught fire during a pit stop, injuring his gasman and leaving Jerry Punch some singed hairs (after this, pit reporters are required to wear fire suits).
 * 1992: Bill Elliott won in unlikely fashion as a caution trapped the entire field behind him a lap down during green flag stops in the final 30 laps.
 * 1993: A major snowstorm, Superstorm 93, caused the race (scheduled for March 14) to be rescheduled for March 20, with Morgan Shepard taking the win.
 * 1995: Jeff Gordon posted his second win of 1995 on his way to his first championship title.
 * 1996: Dale Earnhardt scored his 70th career NASCAR Cup Series win in this race. Earnhardt collected his 8th Atlanta win, passing Cale Yarborough as the all-time winningest driver at Atlanta Motor Speedway. This would be Earnhardt's last points victory until the 1998 Daytona 500.
 * 1997: Dale Jarrett dominated in a race where Steve Grissom tore open a concrete wall and flipped over. His fuel cell hit the wall and erupted in flame.
 * 1998: Bobby Labonte took the win in a race delayed to Monday by rain and in a weekend that saw numerous driver injuries, notably Mike Skinner and Derrike Cope.
 * 2000: Dale Earnhardt won in a thrilling side-by-side finish, edging out Bobby Labonte by inches. Earnhardt scored his 75th career NASCAR Cup Series win, extending his record at the time as the 6th winningest driver in NASCAR History (currently 8th All-Time). This would be Dale Earnhardt's 9th and final victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway, extending his record as the all-time winningest driver of the racetrack. His record of 9 wins still stands today. This would also be Earnhardt's only win on the 1.54 mile quad-oval configuration. Mike Skinner, Dale Earnhardt's teammate of Richard Childress Racing, had dominated the race by leading 191 of the 325 laps. His engine however blew up with 19 laps to go, allowing Earnhardt to win this race.
 * 2001: Kevin Harvick edged Gordon by inches in his first win for RCR after Earnhardt's death. Although the car had been assigned a new number, Harvick used the same car and team Earnhardt won with the previous year. Prior to Earnhardt's death, this race had already been intended to be Harvick's Cup series debut. He was originally scheduled to run 7 races in 2001, and move to full-time in 2002; but he would go on to race the remainder of the season for the team.
 * 2002: Tony Stewart posted his first 500 mi win.
 * 2005: Carl Edwards slithered past Jimmie Johnson on the final lap to score his first career win, completing a sweep of the weekend at Atlanta.
 * 2006: Bill Lester becomes the first African-American driver to race in a Cup series event since Willy T. Ribbs in 1986. Kasey Kahne would win this race, which became the first of his six wins that year.
 * 2007: It was the last race that the fourth generation car was run consecutively. The fifth generation Car of Tomorrow would debut the following week at Bristol. Additionally, Mark Martin would close a 621-race Cup series consecutive start streak, reaching back to 1988.
 * 2008: Kyle Busch won, giving Toyota their first win in the Cup series. It was the first for a foreign automaker since Jaguar in 1954. It was also Busch's first win under the Joe Gibbs Racing banner.
 * 2009: Kurt Busch dominated the race after a pit crew mistake by one of Marcos Ambrose's crewman trapped most of the cars that could challenge him a lap down.
 * 2010: A scary flight by Brad Keselowski was a top story; he was spun out by the lapped car of Carl Edwards and nearly struck the fencing past the start-finish line in the final laps. This was also the last spring race at Atlanta until the track's surviving summer-autumn race was moved to March in 2015.

Past winners

 * 1962, 1982, & 2023: Race shortened due to rain.
 * 1974: Race shortened due to energy crisis.
 * 1983: Yarborough won on his birthday for the second time.
 * 1991: Race started on Sunday but was finished on Monday due to rain.
 * 1993: Race postponed one week due to snow from Blizzard of '93.
 * 1997: Last race on Atlanta's original configuration.
 * 1998 & 2006: Race postponed from Sunday to Monday due to rain.
 * 2009 & 2010: Race extended due to a green–white–checker finish. 2010 race took 2 attempts.

Track length notes

 * 1960–1969: 1.5 mile course
 * 1970–1997: 1.522 mile course
 * 1998–2010, 2021–: 1.54 mile course