Mid-Week Rankings: Dover II, 2012

Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover. 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 Dover;
  • the loop data for the past eight races at the other tracks in the Steeps track group (i.e., Bristol, Darlington, Las Vegas and Homestead);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Dover; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Steeps.

The results:

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