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

Update: I’ve completed my final Fontana driver rankings.

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

• The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona and Talladega);
• the loop data for the past four races (excluding Daytona);
• the loop data for the past four races at Fontana;
• the loop data for the past eight races at the other tracks in the Large Ovals track group (i.e., Texas, Charlotte, Atlanta, Kansas, Chicago, Michigan and Kentucky);
• the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Fontana; and
• the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Large Ovals.

The results:

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