Kevin Harvick tops my early Las Vegas driver rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

Update: I’ve now completed my final Las Vegas driver rankings.

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

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

Note: I haven’t found an entry list yet, so these rankings probably include drivers who won’t run at Las Vegas, and might omit drivers who will.

The results:

1. Kevin Harvick
2. Kyle Busch
3. Joey Logano
4. Jimmie Johnson
5. Brad Keselowski
6. Carl Edwards
7. Matt Kenseth
8. Martin Truex Jr.
9. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
10. Kurt Busch
11. Denny Hamlin
12. Kasey Kahne
13. Kyle Larson
14. Jamie McMurray
15. Ryan Newman
16. Paul Menard
17. Austin Dillon
18. Greg Biffle
19. Clint Bowyer
20. Chase Elliott
21. Aric Almirola
22. A.J. Allmendinger
23. Brian Vickers
24. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
25. Ryan Blaney
26. Regan Smith
27. Brian Scott
28. Ty Dillon
29. Danica Patrick
30. Casey Mears
31. David Ragan
32. Trevor Bayne
33. Alex Bowman
34. Chris Buescher
35. Michael Annett
36. Landon Cassill
37. Michael McDowell
38. Cole Whitt
39. Matt DiBenedetto
40. Travis Kvapil
41. J.J Yeley
42. Jeb Burton
43. Alex Kennedy
44. Jeffrey Earnhardt
45. Reed Sorenson