Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Chicagoland. I compiled them by crunching:
- The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona, Talladega, Sonoma and Watkins Glen);
- the loop data for the past four races;
- the loop data for the past four races at Chicagoland;
- the loop data for the past eight races at other tracks in the Large Ovals track group (i.e., Michigan, Kentucky, Fontana, Charlotte, Texas, Atlanta and Kansas);
- the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Chicagoland; and
- the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Large Ovals.
The results:
- Jimmie Johnson
- Carl Edwards
- Clint Bowyer
- Matt Kenseth
- Kasey Kahne
- Kyle Busch
- Kurt Busch
- Jeff Gordon
- Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
- Martin Truex, Jr.
- Joey Logano
- Kevin Harvick
- Brad Keselowski
- Mark Martin
- Juan Pablo Montoya
- Greg Biffle
- Ryan Newman
- Denny Hamlin
- Jamie McMurray
- Brian Vickers
- Paul Menard
- Jeff Burton
- Aric Almirola
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Marcos Ambrose
- A.J. Allmendinger
- David Ragan
- David Reutimann
- Casey Mears
- Danica Patrick
- Cole Whitt(i)
- J.J. Yeley
- Justin Allgaier(i)
- Dave Blaney
- David Gilliland
- Travis Kvapil
- Landon Cassill
- Timmy Hill
- Tony Raines
- Joe Nemechek
- Michael McDowell
- Josh Wise
- Mike Bliss
- Reed Sorenson