Early Rankings: Kansas II, 2017

Martin Truex Jr photo

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

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

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

  • The loop data for the past 15 Cup races (excluding Daytona, Watkins Glen, Sonoma and Talladega);
  • the loop data for the past four races;
  • the loop data for the past four races at Kansas;
  • 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 Chicagoland);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Kansas; 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. Kevin Harvick
  4. Kyle Larson
  5. Matt Kenseth
  6. Chase Elliott
  7. Brad Keselowski
  8. Denny Hamlin
  9. Ryan Blaney
  10. Jimmie Johnson
  11. Joey Logano
  12. Kurt Busch
  13. Jamie McMurray
  14. Daniel Suarez
  15. Erik Jones
  16. Austin Dillon
  17. Ricky Stenhouse Jr
  18. Dale Earnhardt Jr
  19. Ryan Newman
  20. Clint Bowyer
  21. Kasey Kahne
  22. Trevor Bayne
  23. Paul Menard
  24. AJ Allmendinger
  25. Aric Almirola
  26. Ty Dillon
  27. Danica Patrick
  28. Chris Buescher
  29. Michael McDowell
  30. David Ragan
  31. Landon Cassill
  32. Matt DiBenedetto
  33. Cole Whitt
  34. Corey LaJoie
  35. Gray Gaulding
  36. Jeffrey Earnhardt
  37. Reed Sorenson
  38. Derrike Cope
  39. Carl Long
  40. Brett Moffitt
  41. #51 Car TBA

Note: To crunch loop data, I use the Statistics Wizard on Fantasy Racing Cheatsheet.