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

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

Here are my early driver rankings for next week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Martinsville. 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;
• the loop data for the past four races at Martinsville;
• the loop data for the past nine races at the other tracks in the Flats track group (i.e., Richmond, Phoenix, Indy, Pocono and New Hampshire);
• the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Martinsville; and
• the practice and qualifying data for past nine races at the aforementioned Flats.

The results:

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