Kevin Harvick tops my early Texas rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

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