Dale Jr. took over the top spot in my final Daytona 500 driver rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)
The practice speed chart numbers have long held very little predictive value at the restrictor plate races because the cars draft during plate practices. So, to compile final rankings for today’s Daytona 500, I updated my early rankings with data from Thursday’s Can-Am duel races. And unfortunately, I had to massage that data a bit because the Duel 1 loop data wasn’t available. That reduces the Duel data’s predictive value, so I dialed back its weight in my spreadsheet accordingly.
The results:
- Dale Earnhardt Jr
- Brad Keselowski
- Denny Hamlin
- Kyle Busch
- Joey Logano
- Chase Elliott
- Clint Bowyer
- Matt Kenseth
- Martin Truex, Jr.
- Kasey Kahne
- Kevin Harvick
- Austin Dillon
- Kyle Larson
- Kurt Busch
- Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
- Ryan Blaney
- Jamie McMurray
- Daniel Suarez
- Jimmie Johnson
- Paul Menard
- Trevor Bayne
- Danica Patrick
- Aric Almirola
- Ty Dillon
- Ryan Newman
- Erik Jones
- Michael McDowell
- David Ragan
- AJ Allmendinger
- Landon Cassill
- D.J. Kennington
- Brendan Gaughan
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Chris Buescher
- Michael Waltrip
- Cole Whitt
- Elliott Sadler
- Joey Gase
- Jeffrey Earnhardt
- Corey LaJoie