Early Rankings: Kansas II, 2016

Martin Truex Jr photo

Martin Truex Jr. tops my early Kansas II driver rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

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

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