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

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

The results:

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