Brad Keselowski tops my early Kentucky driver rankings.. (photo courtesy nascar)

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

Here are my mid-week driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Kentucky. I compiled them by crunching:

• The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona II, Talladega and Sonoma;
• the loop data for the past four races at Kentucky;
• the loop data for the past seven races at other tracks in the Large Ovals track group (i.e., Fontana, Kansas, Texas, Charlotte, Atlanta and Michigan;
• the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Kentucky; and
• the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Large Ovals.

The results:

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