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

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:

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