Early Rankings: Homestead, 2015

Kevin Harvick photo

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

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

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

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

The results:

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