Early Rankings: Darlington, 2015

Kevin Harvick photo

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

Update: I’ve now completed my final Darlington rankings (click here to see them).

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

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

The results:

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