Early Rankings: Texas II, 2016

jimmie johnson photo

JJ tops my early Texas II driver rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

Update: I’ve posted my final Texas 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 Texas. I compiled them by crunching:

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

The results:

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