Jimmie Johnson tops my Daytona 500 rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)
The practice speed chart numbers have long held very little predictive value at the restrictor plate races because the cars draft during plate practices. And now, unfortunately, they draft during qualifying, too, so the Daytona 500 qualifying speed chart numbers are out the window as well.
Fortunately, Thursday’s Budweiser Duel 150 races gave us fresh loop data to work with. I crunched that data and used it to update my early Daytona 500 rankings. The results:
- Jimmie Johnson
- Dale Earnhardt. Jr.
- Matt Kenseth
- Greg Biffle
- Joey Logano
- Jeff Gordon
- Kasey Kahne
- Carl Edwards
- Martin Truex. Jr.
- Denny Hamlin
- Austin Dillon
- Paul Menard
- Regan Smith
- Brad Keselowski
- Tony Stewart
- Kevin Harvick
- Matt Crafton
- Jamie McMurray
- Ryan Blaney(i)
- Landon Cassill
- Danica Patrick
- Clint Bowyer
- Sam Hornish Jr.
- Ryan Newman
- Justin Allgaier
- AJ Allmendinger
- Aric Almirola
- Casey Mears
- Cole Whitt
- Michael McDowell
- Trevor Bayne
- Ricky Stenhouse. Jr.
- David Gilliland
- Reed Sorenson
- David Ragan
- Michael Annett
- Kyle Larson
- Ty Dillon
- Mike Wallace
- J.J Yeley
- Michael Waltrip
- Bobby Labonte
- Johnny Sauter
I know it is tough to do but it would be nice to have these earlier if possible. It is pretty late in the game to adjust all my rankings just a couple hours before the race..,But, thanks for your input and good luck!