Early Rankings: Charlotte I, 2016

Kevin Harvick photo

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

Update: I’ve posted my final Charlotte I 2016 driver rankings, which improve upon these early rankings.

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

Plus, I tweaked the results obtained with the above with data pulled from the All Star and Showdown races. The results:

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