Early Rankings: Martinsville I, 2013

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

The results:

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

3 thoughts on “Early Rankings: Martinsville I, 2013”

  1. Erik Allen

    Good picks and great site! I’ve been checking your stuff out since the beginning of the year, and figured it was time to post.

    I’m always intrigued by Kyle Busch and where he might end up. I’ve got him with the 3rd highest win probability, but only the 11th highest projected points, because he’s got such a high chance of crashing.

    How do you deal with special cases like Regan Smith?

  3. Jed Henson Post author

    Dave: I set you up with a subscription to my email notification system. So when I post new rankings, you’ll get an email alert. Good?

    Erik: Yes, KyBu is interesting. Probably the best pure wheel man in the game, and right now the Gibbs cars look very strong, too. He had such bad luck last year. If he can get just average, break-even luck this year, he should have a great year.

    Ah yes, Regan Smith. On one hand, he gets an undeserved bump in my formula because he’s now in lesser equipment and the formula includes data from when he was in better equipment. On the other hand, he’s missing races, which hurts him in the formula. So, I figure it evens out sorta, and I’ve therefore refrained so far from manually moving him up or down in the rankings.

    From a Yahoo fantasy perspective, though, it’s pretty simple: If he’s an option in Group C, he’s almost a slam dunk starter. Both for value, and to help save Stenhouse, etc., starts.

    I should probably see what his standard deviation is (i.e., his predicted finish in my formula vs. his actual finish) and compare it to the overall average. That would tell me if I’m on the right track with him. If I get time, I will.

Comments are closed.