Early Rankings: Pocono II, 2013

Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Pocono. I compiled them by crunching:

  • The loop data for the past 14 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona, Talladega and Sonoma);
  • the loop data for the past four races;
  • the loop data for the past four races at Pocono;
  • the loop data for the past eight races at the other tracks in the Flats track group (i.e., Martinsville, Phoenix, Indy, Richmond and New Hampshire);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Pocono; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Flats.

The results:

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