Early Rankings: Fontana, 2013

Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Fontana. 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);
  • the loop data for the past four races at Fontana;
  • the loop data for the past eight races at the other tracks in the Large Ovals track group (i.e., Texas, Charlotte, Atlanta, Kansas, Chicago, Michigan and Kentucky);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Fontana; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Large Ovals.

The results:

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