Update: I’ve now completed my final Dover II rankings (click here to see them).
Here are my mid-week driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover. I compiled them by crunching:
- The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona, Watkins Glen, Sonoma and Talladega);
- the loop data for the past four races;
- the loop data for the past four races at Dover;
- the loop data for the past six races at the other tracks in the Steeps track group (i.e., Bristol, Darlington, Las Vegas and Homestead);
- the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Dover; and
- the practice and qualifying data for past six races at the aforementioned Steeps.
The results:
- Kevin Harvick
- Joey Logano
- Brad Keselowski
- Jimmie Johnson
- Matt Kenseth
- Denny Hamlin
- Jeff Gordon
- Kyle Busch
- Carl Edwards
- Kurt Busch
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Kyle Larson
- Ryan Newman
- Jamie McMurray
- Kasey Kahne
- Clint Bowyer
- Paul Menard
- Tony Stewart
- Aric Almirola
- Greg Biffle
- Austin Dillon
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- AJ Allmendinger
- David Ragan
- Sam Hornish Jr.
- Casey Mears
- Danica Patrick
- Justin Allgaier
- Trevor Bayne
- David Gilliland
- Landon Cassill
- Alex Bowman
- Michael Annett
- Cole Whitt
- Brett Moffitt
- Josh Wise
- Matt DiBenedetto
- J.J Yeley
- Reed Sorenson
- Alex Kennedy
- Jeb Burton
- Travis Kvapil
- Timmy Hill
Harvick again ? About 80 % of the time ? He will wreck himself and somebody else trying to win
Yeah, I don’t like it either. It’s monotonous, but that’s what the numbers say. And he’s lived up to them, too. He’s won twice this year, finished second a ridiculous 11 times, finished third three times and fourth twice. That’s 18 top fives out of 29 races. Last week he finished 21st, so he sucked, right? Actually, he led 216 out of 300 laps; only running out of gas could ruin his stellar day. The bottom line: He’s fast, fast, fast this year.