Early Week Driver Rankings for Richmond

The NASCAR Cup Series will travel back to Richmond Raceway this week. The Cup Series competed at this track in April and the race was completely dominated by Hendrick Motorsports. William Byron led 117 laps, Josh Berry filled in for Chase Elliott and finished second and Kyle Larson led 93 laps and won the race. Joe Gibbs Racing has dominated the other short, flat track races this season. Which team will dominate the race Sunday? It will be fun to see how it all plays out. The Cook Out 400 can be seen Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network (streamed on NBC Sports App).

There have been five races on the short, flat tracks this season (Phoenix, Richmond, Martinsville, Gateway and New Hampshire). That gives us a lot of data to work with this week. I doubt the speeds from the race at Martinsville will translate into speed at Richmond, but we can look at the other four races to help handicap the Cook Out 400.

I used the data from the races at Phoenix, Gateway and New Hampshire for the Driver Rankings this week. I also used the data from the race earlier this season at Richmond and the two races last year in the Gen-7 car at Richmond. This should give us an idea of which teams will unload with some speed Sunday.

Here are my early week driver rankings for the Cook Out 400.

Be sure to check back Sunday Morning for the updated Driver Rankings for the race at Atlanta.

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