Martin Truex Jr. tops my early Texas I driver rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

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

Here are my early driver rankings for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Texas. I compiled them by crunching:

• The loop data for the past 15 Cup races (excluding Daytona 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. Martin Truex Jr.
2. Chase Elliott
3. Brad Keselowski
4. Kyle Busch
5. Joey Logano
6. Kyle Larson
7. Jimmie Johnson
8. Kevin Harvick
9. Matt Kenseth
10. Erik Jones
11. Denny Hamlin
12. Jamie McMurray
13. Kasey Kahne
14. Ryan Blaney
15. Ryan Newman
16. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
17. Austin Dillon
18. Kurt Busch
19. AJ Allmendinger
20. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
21. Paul Menard
22. Trevor Bayne
23. Clint Bowyer
24. Danica Patrick
25. Daniel Suarez
26. Ty Dillon
27. Aric Almirola
28. Chris Buescher
29. Michael McDowell
30. JJ Yeley
31. David Ragan
32. Landon Cassill
33. Matt DiBenedetto
34. Cole Whitt
35. Corey LaJoie
36. Gray Gaulding
37. Reed Sorenson
38. Jeffrey Earnhardt
39. Timmy Hill
40. Derrike Cope