Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500: A recap in GIFs

Steve Luvender recaps Sunday's Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway in a series of GIFs.

With the Daytona in the books, Sunday marked the first race for a partial implementation of NASCAR's new rules package at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Aric Almirola started on pole, his first since 2012.

Starts and restarts proved treacherous with three- and four-wide battles throughout the field.

Pit road was tricky for rookie Daniel Hemric, who went for a slide near his stall.

Kurt Busch showed aggression on an early race restart, powering into a three-wide situation alongside teammate Kyle Larson.

Twice during pit stops in Stage 1, Joey Logano found himself blocked in by Alex Bowman's car, losing plenty of valuable spots on track.

Kyle Larson, sporting the McDonald's colors, won Stage 1.

Hey, you're paying for that camera lens!

"I'll have a Big Mac with bacon -- no, wait, actually, no bacon -- hey, come back here!"

Typical Atlanta contender Kevin Harvick competed fiercely with Kyle Larson in the first two stages after Larson's No. 42 caught Harvick's Ford.

Hey, we said they battled fiercely.

At the end of Stage 2, Larson couldn't reel in Harvick, who claimed the stage win.

After adjusting pit positioning to avoid another hold-up, Joey Logano blocked Martin Truex Jr. from exiting his pit stall easily, infuriating Truex in the same way Alex Bowman did to Logano earlier in the race.

The afternoon wasn't kind to Kyle Busch, who not only missed pit road under green-flag pit stops, but also tagged the wall with a tire issue.

Yeah, not the ideal day for 'Rowdy.'

With a potential second-consecutive top-10 run waiting in the wings for Ryan Preece, his car made contact with B.J. McLeod, who was pitting with a flat tire. The crash ended Preece's day.

The ensuing caution happened in the middle of green-flag pit stops, trapping much of the field a lap down behind the cars who hadn't pitted. When the leaders stopped, the drivers who'd pitted took the wave around to get back on the lead lap.

Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski fought hard in the closing laps -- respecting, of course, the fact that they have the same boss.

While running in an impressive fourth position, Daniel Hemric made an unscheduled pit stop after on-track contact knocked the No. 8 out of whack.

Ryan Blaney, too, was forced to pit in the late stages of the race despite a strong run after a tire issue plagued his Ford, dashing his hopes for a solid finish.

Despite an impressive charge mounted by Martin Truex Jr. in the closing laps, Brad Keselowski held on for the victory.

Truex wasn't pleased about finishing second -- but what race car driver would be?

Flu-like symptoms couldn't hold back the No. 2 -- though, given the circumstances, we certainly hope Brad did.