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

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

Here are my early driver rankings for Saturday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Texas. 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 Texas;
• the loop data for the past eight races at the other tracks in the Large Ovals track group (i.e., Fontana, Charlotte, Atlanta, Kansas, Chicago, Michigan and Kentucky);
• the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Texas; and
• the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Large Ovals.

The results:

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