Summer Season Power Rankings – Week Three

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PowerRankings_Week3

We’re already 25% of the way through the 2015 Summer Season, and we’re starting to see who some of the drivers are that will be contending for championships throughout the season. And while points battles are starting to shape up, others are trying to break into the win column. So far this season, we’ve seen seven different winners including two first-time winners, while all of last season we only saw fourteen different winners total. As the season rolls on, take a look back at the Week 3 Power Rankings:

10. James Linkiewicz – Last Week: NR (+1)
James cracks into the top ten in the power rankings with another convincing victory in the Street Stocks, which was his 2nd in the last two races in that division. But aside from that, he’s been a little inconsistent to start the season. In 10 races, he’s finished outside the top 15 six times, partly due to some back luck and getting caught up in wrecks, but he’s also been showing a lot of speed out front as we’ve seen in his wins as well as his 4th in the Pro Late Model race last week. James will need to be more consistent to climb the rankings, but we should see him running up front more often.

9. Ian Layne – Last Week: NR (+2)
Ian has had a decent start to his Summer Season so far, although he’s searching for a little bit more speed. But in 12 races so far, he’s picked up 5 top ten finishes which included 3 last week, as well as 5 finishes just outside the top ten in the 11th-15th range. He used the Qualifying Dash invert to start in the top spot of the Pro Late Model race and led 7 laps, which was the most he’s led in a single SARA race, before finishing 7th in the top ten. Ian will need a little more consistency inside the top ten, but he should continue to battle for finishes within that range.

8. Derek Robinson – Last Week: NR (+3)
Derek started the season with a pair of top tens which got him in the rankings, then dropped out after missing week 2, but with some more solid runs, he’s jumped right back up. His week started off with a 3rd in the SK Modifieds, followed by a top five in the Pro Late Models, and an 8th in the Super Late Models after he took the fast time and the Dash win. Derek has made the rankings a couple times in the past few seasons, but it seems like lately that each time he makes it in, he missed the following week. So we’ll see if he shows up this week, and if he does, we should see him up front some more.

7. Matt Rolfe – Last Week: 6th (-1)
We’ve already mentioned consistency with a couple of other drivers, and so far Matt seems to have it across the board. He picked up his 3rd top five in the SK modifieds, and he picked up another top ten in the Street Stocks to go with two top fives as well. Unfortunately the consistency has carried into the Super Late Models as well, but the finishes have been on the wrong side of things as he has three finishes of 14th or worse. We should see a couple more solid runs from Matt this week, and we’ll look to see if he can pick it up in the SLM division.

6. Casey Kelley – Last Week: 2nd (-4)
Casey missed week 3 of the season last week, and because of that he drops down the rankings. His performance over the first two weeks, which included 5 top fives and a win in 5 races, was enough to keep him in the rankings for now, but he’ll probably drop out with another missed week. If he races though, he should be a contender for a win.

5. Dale Owen – Last Week: 7th (+2)
Dale broke into the power rankings last week with some top ten finishes early in the season, and he did more of that last week as he finished in the top ten in all four divisions. His week started with a 6th in the SK Modifieds, and beat that the next night with a top five in the Street Stocks. The top tens continued into the Pro Late Model race where he finished 9th, and then followed that up with a 7th in the Super Late Models. Dale seems to have his stuff working pretty well to start off the season, and if he can continue to run inside the top ten each night, those should start to turn into more top fives as well.

4. Ty Majeski – Last Week: 5th (+1)
Everyone knows that Ty is a threat to win every single race he enters, and so far in the Summer Season, he’s three-for-three in the win column. He had two wins in the opening week of the season, before missing week 2. But he entered last Monday night’s SK Modified race and he picked right back up where he left off with another victory, despite starting at the back after missing qualifying. There’s a pretty good chance that Ty will again add another “W” to his name this week if he races, which is clear by his 58% winning percentage, so we’ll look for another strong performance (or more).

3. David Krikorian – Last Week: 3rd (+0)
After winning both the Pro Late Model and Super Late Model races in week 2, David put in a couple more strong performances in those divisions last week. He started near the front of the PLM race and led a few laps before giving the lead up to the eventual race winner. David ended up with a 7th place finish in that race which launched him up into the PLM points lead. Then on Thursday, he had a strong car all race, running inside the top five all night before finishing 3rd. Look for David to continue to run strong as he appears to be on his way to contend for a couple of titles.

2. Joe Schaffer Jr.  – Last Week: 4th (+2)
Joe’s impressive start to his SARA career, continued on during week 3 of the season. His week started off with him going for a ride in the opening Street Stock lap at Oxford, but would recover for a 4th place finish. On Wednesday, he was one of two cars that were untouchable in the Pro Late Model race as he finished 2nd behind his teammate. Then on Thursday, Joe started at the front of the Super Late Model race after the Qualifying Dash invert, and he went on to lead all 100 laps of the feature to pick up his first career win. Joe is currently leading both the SLM and SS points standings, so look for him to be a contender each night out.

1. Cody Kelley  – Last Week: 1st (+0)
Cody didn’t pick up a victory last week like he had done in the first two weeks, but you can’t win them all I guess. But he still had a couple of very solid runs which keeps him at the top of the rankings this week. He had to start at the back of the SK Modified race after winning the two opening races, and worked his way up into a 4th place finish. Then on Wednesday he had a rare qualifying effort that put him 14th to start, but he would again pick his way towards the front to get to 3rd during the long green flag run. Cody leads the SK standings, and we should continue to see him running up front and get back into the winner’s circle this week.

New This Week: James Linkiewicz, Ian Layne, Derek Robinson
Dropped Out: Camaron Hamilton, Darren Daves, Darrell Hamlin, Evan Sorensen, Patrick Hahe
Just Outside, Looking In: Tim Bills, Richard Bruce, Darren Daves, Davey Riendeau