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

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

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

• The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona, Talladega, Watkins Glen and Sonoma;
• the loop data for the past four races;
• the loop data for the past four races at Bristol;
• the loop data for the past five races at the other tracks in the Steeps track group (i.e., Dover, Darlington, Las Vegas and Homestead);
• the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Bristol; and
• the practice and qualifying data for past five races at the aforementioned Steeps.

The results:

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