Early Rankings: Darlington 2012

Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Darlington. I compiled them by crunching:

  • The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona and Talladega);
  • the loop data for the past four races (excluding Daytona and Talladega);
  • the loop data for the past four races at Darlington;
  • the loop data for the past seven races at the other tracks in the Steeps track group (i.e., Bristol, Dover, Homestead, Las Vegas);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Darlington; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past seven races at the aforementioned Steeps.

The results:

  1. Jeff Gordon
  2. Jimmie Johnson
  3. Kyle Busch
  4. Greg Biffle
  5. Martin Truex, Jr.
  6. Denny Hamlin
  7. Kasey Kahne
  8. Tony Stewart
  9. Carl Edwards
  10. Matt Kenseth
  11. Kevin Harvick
  12. Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
  13. Ryan Newman
  14. Brad Keselowski
  15. A.J. Allmendinger
  16. Jeff Burton
  17. Jamie McMurray
  18. Mark Martin
  19. Clint Bowyer
  20. Marcos Ambrose
  21. Juan Pablo Montoya
  22. Joey Logano
  23. Paul Menard
  24. Regan Smith
  25. Kurt Busch
  26. Bobby Labonte
  27. Aric Almirola
  28. Casey Mears
  29. Dave Blaney
  30. David Reutimann
  31. David Ragan
  32. David Gilliland
  33. Danica Patrick (i)
  34. Michael McDowell
  35. Landon Cassill
  36. Joe Nemechek
  37. David Stremme
  38. J.J. Yeley
  39. Scott Riggs
  40. Reed Sorenson
  41. Scott Speed
  42. Mike Bliss
  43. Josh Wise
  44. Mike Skinner
  45. Cole Whitt (i)
  46. Stephen Leicht