Early Rankings: Daytona II, 2013

Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s race at Daytona. I compiled them by crunching the loop and qualifying data for the past two races each at Daytona and Talladega, which reflects speed, the ability to pass and the ability (and inclination) to run a lot of laps up front:

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