Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Richmond. I compiled them by crunching:
- The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona);
- the loop data for the past four races;
- the loop data for the past four races at Richmond;
- the loop data for the past seven races at four other tracks in the Flats track group (i.e., Martinsville, Phoenix, Pocono and New Hampshire);
- the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Richmond; and
- the practice and qualifying data for past seven races at the aforementioned Flats.
The results:
- Jeff Gordon
- Kyle Busch
- Jimmie Johnson
- Matt Kenseth
- Clint Bowyer
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Kevin Harvick
- Brad Keselowski
- Joey Logano
- Denny Hamlin
- Kasey Kahne
- Carl Edwards
- Kurt Busch
- Ryan Newman
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Jamie McMurray
- Tony Stewart
- Brian Vickers
- Greg Biffle
- Paul Menard
- Marcos Ambrose
- Aric Almirola
- A J Allmendinger
- Kyle Larson
- Austin Dillon
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Casey Mears
- Justin Allgaier
- Danica Patrick
- David Ragan
- David Gilliland
- Landon Cassill
- David Reutimann
- Travis Kvapil
- Michael McDowell
- Dave Blaney
- Michael Annett
- Cole Whitt
- Josh Wise
- David Stremme
- Alex Bowman
- Parker Kligerman
- Joe Nemechek
- Reed Sorenson
- Ryan Truex