Update: I’ve posted my final Homestead 2016 driver rankings, which improve upon the below early rankings.
Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Homestead. I compiled them by crunching:
- The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Watkins Glen and Talladega;
- the loop data for the past four races;
- the loop data for the past four races at Homestead;
- the loop data for the past six races at the other tracks in the Steeps track group (i.e., Bristol, Darlington, Las Vegas and Dover);
- the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Homestead; and
- the practice and qualifying data for past six races at the aforementioned Steeps.
The results:
- Matt Kenseth
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Joey Logano
- Kyle Busch
- Kevin Harvick
- Denny Hamlin
- Brad Keselowski
- Carl Edwards
- Jimmie Johnson
- Chase Elliott
- Kasey Kahne
- Kurt Busch
- Kyle Larson
- Ryan Newman
- Alex Bowman
- Ryan Blaney
- Jamie McMurray
- Paul Menard
- Austin Dillon
- AJ Allmendinger
- Greg Biffle
- Aric Almirola
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Clint Bowyer
- Tony Stewart
- Trevor Bayne
- Casey Mears
- Chris Buescher
- Danica Patrick
- Ty Dillon
- Landon Cassill
- Michael McDowell
- Regan Smith
- David Ragan
- Brian Scott
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Dylan Lupton
- Michael Annett
- Jeffrey Earnhardt
- Reed Sorenson
- Gray Gaulding
So if you had to pick the next champion right now you’d go with Logano?
Short answer = yes, but with strong qualifiers. First, KyBu is just a tick behind Logano in my rankings (roughly 0.5% in my points system), and Edwards and JJ are still in the picture (roughly 5% behind). And, I typically give my 3rd place driver only a 10% chance (roughly) of winning a race, so there’s lots of room for the unforeseen to occur. We should know a little more after practice/quals.
Thanks for all your hard this racing season. I’ve used a lot of your predictions and it has help do great on the challenge boards!
I found your site on Tuesday and was looking forward to using your DraftKings rankings. Are they going to be published tonight?
@ Al: Thanks for the feedback, and you’re welcome!
@ JD: Sorry I wasn’t able to get the DK info up last night. Should be up within 2 hours this morning.
Thanks for the response I am looking forward to next year.