Early Rankings: Pocono II, 2016

Kevin Harvick photo

Kevin Harvick tops my early Pocono II driver rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

Update: I’ve posted my final Pocono II driver rankings, which improve upon the early rankings below.

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

  • The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona, Talladega and Sonoma);
  • the loop data for the past four races;
  • the loop data for the past four races at Pocono;
  • the loop data for the past seven races at the other tracks in the Flats track group (i.e., Martinsville, Phoenix, Indy, Richmond and New Hampshire);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Pocono; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past seven races at the aforementioned Flats.

The results:

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