Mid-Week Rankings: Pocono II, 2012

Here are my mid-week driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Pocono. 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 past four races at Pocono;
  • the loop data for the past seven races at the other tracks in the Flats track group (i.e., Martinsville, Phoenix, New Hampshire, Indy and Richmond);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Pocono; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past seven races at the aforementioned Flats.

The results:

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