Early Rankings: Kentucky, 2012

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

  • The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona, Talladega and Sonoma);
  • the loop data for the past four races (excluding Daytona, Talladega and Sonoma);
  • the loop data for the 2011 race at Kentucky;
  • the loop data for the past eight races at the other tracks in the Large Ovals track group (i.e., Fontana, Kansas, Atlanta, Texas, Chicago, Charlotte and Michigan);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the 2011 race at Kentucky; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Large Ovals.

The results:

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