Early Rankings: Texas II, 2013

Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Texas. 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 Texas;
  • the loop data for the past eight races at the other tracks in the Large Ovals track group (i.e., Fontana, Charlotte, Atlanta, Kansas, Chicago, Michigan and Kentucky);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Texas; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Large Ovals.

The results:

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