The NASCAR Cup Series season has one more race before the Easter break, and it is a doozy. There are 250 laps scheduled around Bristol for Sunday afternoon, but with one caveat: it’ll be on dirt. We have no previous data to go off of when it comes to the Cup cars on dirt, and although some drivers racing this weekend have participated in events on dirt at Eldora in the Truck Series, that doesn’t translate extremely well. If you’re reading between the lines here, I’ll just say it: take this all with a grain of salt. Nobody really knows how this race is going to play out on Sunday, but I’ll try my best to give quality advice.
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How the algorithm works: There are quite a few statistics that go into the Power Index formula, including recent performance both overall and at this week’s track specifically, similar track performance, projected strength of the car, practice speeds (when applicable), starting position, and a few other variables.
Food City Dirt Race Algorithm Predicted Finishing Order
| Rank | Driver | Power Index |
| 1. | Hamlin, Denny | 28.74 |
| 2. | Larson, Kyle | 27.19 |
| 3. | Busch, Kyle | 25.04 |
| 4. | Blaney, Ryan | 24.34 |
| 5. | Bell, Christopher | 23.03 |
| 6. | Byron, William | 19.70 |
| 7. | Truex, Jr., Martin | 19.39 |
| 8. | Logano, Joey | 19.28 |
| 9. | Bowman, Alex | 17.17 |
| 10. | Dillon, Austin | 16.67 |
| 11. | Briscoe, Chase | 15.35 |
| 12. | Busch, Kurt | 14.15 |
| 13. | DiBenedetto, Matt | 14.12 |
| 14. | Keselowski, Brad | 13.99 |
| 15. | Elliott, Chase | 13.20 |
| 16. | Harvick, Kevin | 12.43 |
| 17. | Stenhouse, Jr., Ricky | 11.31 |
| 18. | Wallace, Bubba | 08.75 |
| 19. | Reddick, Tyler | 06.30 |
| 20. | Newman, Ryan | 01.34 |
| 21. | Chastain, Ross | -02.87 |
| 22. | Buescher, Chris | -06.37 |
| 23. | Suarez, Daniel | -07.23 |
| 24. | Friesen, Stewart | -07.49 |
| 25. | Almirola, Aric | -10.65 |
| 26. | Preece, Ryan | -12.94 |
| 27. | Jones, Erik | -13.17 |
| 28. | McDowell, Michael | -13.20 |
| 29. | Custer, Cole | -15.91 |
| 30. | Dillon, Ty | -20.65 |
| 31. | LaJoie, Corey | -21.15 |
| 32. | Alfredo, Anthony | -22.02 |
| 33. | Yeley, JJ | -26.55 |
| 34. | Ware, Cody | -28.81 |
| 35. | Windom, Chris | -30.41 |
| 36. | Golobic, Shane | -31.58 |
| 37. | Marlar, Mike | -33.67 |
| 38. | Houff, Quin | -35.23 |
| 39. | Bilicki, Josh | -36.12 |
