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 Daytona);
- 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:
- Kyle Busch
- Jimmie Johnson
- Matt Kenseth
- Jeff Gordon
- Denny Hamlin
- Kasey Kahne
- Brad Keselowski
- Joey Logano
- Kevin Harvick
- Carl Edwards
- Kurt Busch
- Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
- Brian Vickers
- Ryan Newman
- Clint Bowyer
- Martin Truex, Jr.
- Jamie McMurray
- Greg Biffle
- Paul Menard
- Tony Stewart
- Aric Almirola
- Kyle Larson
- Marcos Ambrose
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Austin Dillon
- Casey Mears
- David Gilliland
- David Ragan
- Danica Patrick
- Michael Annett
- Justin Allgaier
- David Reutimann
- Travis Kvapil
- Cole Whitt
- Parker Kligerman
- Landon Cassill
- Alex Bowman
- Dave Blaney
- Ryan Truex
- Josh Wise
- J.J. Yeley
- Reed Sorenson
- Joe Nemechek
- David Stremme