Early Rankings: Darlington, 2013

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

The results:

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