Early Rankings: Pocono II, 2017

Kyle Busch photo

Kyle Busch tops my early Pocono II driver rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

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

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

  • The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona, Talladega and Sonoma);
  • the loop data for the past four races;
  • the loop data for the past four races at Pocono;
  • the loop data for the past seven races at the other tracks in the Flats track group (i.e., Martinsville, Phoenix, Indy, Richmond and New Hampshire);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Pocono; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past seven races at the aforementioned Flats.

The results:

  1. Kyle Busch
  2. Martin Truex Jr.
  3. Kyle Larson
  4. Matt Kenseth
  5. Kevin Harvick
  6. Brad Keselowski
  7. Joey Logano
  8. Denny Hamlin
  9. Chase Elliott
  10. Jimmie Johnson
  11. Ryan Blaney
  12. Jamie McMurray
  13. Kurt Busch
  14. Ryan Newman
  15. Erik Jones
  16. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
  17. Clint Bowyer
  18. Kasey Kahne
  19. Austin Dillon
  20. Paul Menard
  21. AJ Allmendinger
  22. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
  23. Danica Patrick
  24. Daniel Suarez
  25. Trevor Bayne
  26. Chris Buescher
  27. Aric Almirola
  28. Ty Dillon
  29. Michael McDowell
  30. David Ragan
  31. Landon Cassill
  32. Matt DiBenedetto
  33. Cole Whitt
  34. #83 car (driver TBA)
  35. Reed Sorenson
  36. Corey LaJoie
  37. Jeffrey Earnhardt
  38. Derrike Cope