Mid-Week Rankings: Chicagoland, 2012

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

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

The results:

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