Early Rankings: Chicagoland, 2017

Martin Truex Jr photo

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

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

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

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

The results:

  1. Martin Truex Jr.
  2. Kyle Busch
  3. Kyle Larson
  4. Kevin Harvick
  5. Matt Kenseth
  6. Brad Keselowski
  7. Denny Hamlin
  8. Chase Elliott
  9. Jimmie Johnson
  10. Kurt Busch
  11. Joey Logano
  12. Erik Jones
  13. Jamie McMurray
  14. Ryan Newman
  15. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
  16. Austin Dillon
  17. Ryan Blaney
  18. Kasey Kahne
  19. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
  20. Clint Bowyer
  21. Daniel Suarez
  22. Paul Menard
  23. Trevor Bayne
  24. Aric Almirola
  25. AJ Allmendinger
  26. Danica Patrick
  27. Ty Dillon
  28. David Ragan
  29. Chris Buescher
  30. Michael McDowell
  31. Landon Cassill
  32. Matt DiBenedetto
  33. Cole Whitt
  34. #83 Car TBA
  35. Reed Sorenson
  36. Gray Gaulding
  37. Jeffrey Earnhardt
  38. #55 Car TBA
  39. Carl Long