Early Rankings: Kansas I, 2015

Kevin Harvick is a big favorite in my early Kansas rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

Kevin Harvick is a big favorite in my early Kansas rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Kansas. 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 Kansas;
  • the loop data for the past eight races at other tracks in the Large Ovals track group (i.e., Michigan, Kentucky, Fontana, Charlotte, Texas, Atlanta and Chicagoland);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Kansas; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Large Ovals.

The results:

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