Early Rankings: Texas I, 2016

Kevin Harvick photo

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