Early Rankings: Las Vegas, 2015

Kevin Harvick tops my early Las Vegas picks. (photo courtesy nascar)

Kevin Harvick tops my early Las Vegas picks. (photo courtesy nascar)

Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas. I compiled them by crunching:

  • The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding DaytonaTalladega and Watkins Glen;
  • the loop data for the past four races (excluding Daytona);
  • the loop data for the past four races at Las Vegas;
  • the loop data for the past seven races at the other tracks in the Steeps track group (i.e., Bristol, Darlington, Dover and Homestead);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Las Vegas; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past seven races at the aforementioned Steeps.

The results:

  1. Kevin Harvick
  2. Jimmie Johnson
  3. Brad Keselowski
  4. Jeff Gordon
  5. Joey Logano
  6. Matt Kenseth
  7. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
  8. Kasey Kahne
  9. Ryan Newman
  10. Denny Hamlin
  11. Carl Edwards
  12. Martin Truex Jr.
  13. Jamie McMurray
  14. Clint Bowyer
  15. Kyle Larson
  16. Paul Menard
  17. Greg Biffle
  18. Brian Vickers
  19. Tony Stewart
  20. A.J. Allmendinger
  21. Aric Almirola
  22. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
  23. Sam Hornish Jr.
  24. Austin Dillon
  25. David Ragan
  26. Regan Smith
  27. Danica Patrick
  28. Trevor Bayne
  29. Casey Mears
  30. Justin Allgaier
  31. David Gilliland
  32. Ryan Blaney
  33. Michael Annett
  34. Cole Whitt
  35. Landon Cassill
  36. #34 Car – Driver TBA
  37. Michael McDowell
  38. Josh Wise
  39. Reed Sorenson
  40. Brian Scott
  41. Alex Bowman
  42. Brendan Gaughan
  43. Jeb Burton
  44. J.J Yeley
  45. Matt Dibenedetto
  46. Travis Kvapil
  47. Mike Wallace
  48. Mike Bliss