Week 8 Power Rankings – 2016 Fall Season

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Power Rankings are based off a driver’s performance over the past three weeks of the season. Wins, poles, laps led, top fives, and top tens all effect a drivers position in the power rankings in a positive way, while finishes outside of the top fifteen or worse, and failing to qualify for races will effect it in a negative way.

This week’s rankings are based off of regular season starts between weeks 6-8 in the 2016 Fall Season. Week 5 results, as well as Fall Brawl results have been dropped out of this week’s calculations for these Power Rankings.

10. Matt Rolfe – Last Week: 4th

Matt drops down to the number 10 spot this week after dropping some better results from Week 5, and replacing them with some subpar results from Week 8. Matt picked up just one top five in Week 8 while his other three finishes were outside of the top ten, but still has a win within the last three weeks which helps him stay in the top ten. Matt is within just 2 points of the SK Modified points lead and will look to contend for back-to-back SK titles.

9. Tim Bills – Last Week: 1st

Although Tim’s big Fall Brawl win is taken out of this week’s rankings, he’s still left with three other victories over the past three weeks of the regular season. However, in the races where Tim isn’t contending for wins, he’s had bad luck and some bad finishes to go with it. In 12 starts over the past three weeks, he has 6 top tens, but his other 6 finishes are all outside of the top ten bringing his average finish down to 10th during that time. Tim drops 8 spots in this week’s rankings, but is still in the points lead in the Street Stock division as he looks for back-to-back titles.

8. Derek Robinson – Last Week: Not Ranked

Derek has been solid all season long in the Super Late Model division, which shows by his current 2nd place in the standings for that division. Over the past three weeks, Derek’s 8 starts including those from the SLM division have resulted in an average finish of 8.375. Those numbers include 6 top tens and 2 top fives. Although Derek’s SLM season has been one of his best in a while, the points lead is nearly out of reach with two weeks remaining, but he’ll look to finish it off strong with some more good runs.

7. Dale Owen – Last Week: 7th

Dale has quietly put together some solid runs lately which keeps him at number 7 in the rankings this week. In 10 starts over the past three weeks, 7 of those have resulted in top tens including his SK Modified victory at Lanier from a few weeks ago, and he has an average finish of 8.5 during that time. Dale currently sits inside of the top five in both the SK Mods and Street Stock divisions, and will look to close out the season with some strong points finishes.

6. Ty Spearman – Last Week: 6th

Ty’s numbers look pretty similar to Dale’s, as both drivers have put together 7 top ten finishes over the past three weeks of the season. Although Dale has the better average finish of the two drivers, Ty has two victories over Dale’s one victory which keeps Ty here at number 6 in the rankings. While we noted last week that Ty has had an up-and-down season, he picked up three top ten finishes last week, but will look to find more speed and close out the season with some better runs.

5. David Krikorian – Last Week: 10th

David jumps up a few spots this week in the rankings, partially due to him dropping some bad finishes from Week 5 out of these numbers, and replacing them with some much stronger runs. Although David’s sample size of starts is a bit lower with just 5 starts over the past three weeks, he’s picked up four top ten finishes and all of them are inside the top five. This past week of the season he added a 2nd in the Pro Late Models at Iowa and a top five in the Super Late Models at Southern National. “DK” looks to have finally turned his season around and will look to finish it off with more of the same.

4. Cody Kelley – Last Week: 2nd

Although Cody’s starts over the past three weeks have been very limited, his stats show some pretty good numbers. He has just three starts within the past three weeks but they are all strong with 2nd and 4th place finishes in the Street Stock division, but then he closed out Week 8 in victory lane at Southern National. However it’s hard for Cody to get much higher on this list without adding some more starts to pad those numbers.

3. Trevor Edwards – Last Week: 8th

Trevor is just one of two drivers on this week’s list without a win over the past three weeks, but his numbers are good, they are damn good. Trevor has started all 14 regular season races during that time, and has just 2 finishes outside of the top ten. The rest of his numbers show 12 top tens, 10 top fives, and 7 podium finishes which gives him an average finish of 6.57. Trevor is in pretty good shape to wrap up all four Rookie titles this season, and also finds himself in contention to battle for three championships as well. If Trevor can continue to run like this, look for him to be a threat for at least one win to close out the season.

2. Bill Martin – Last Week: 3rd

Similar to Trevor, Bill has put up some pretty solid numbers over the past three weeks with just 1 finish outside the top ten in 11 starts. Out of those 10 other finishes, Bill has 7 top fives and still has a win on his record in these rankings from the Super Late Model double features at Milwaukee. Although Bill was out of the running in points early in the season, he’s run well enough to jump up to 4th in the SLM standings, and currently sits 5th in the SK standings but isn’t out of reach to possibly sneak up into the battle if some of the front runners have troubles.

1. Joe Schaffer – Last Week: 5th

Heading into the final two weeks of the season, Joe currently leads two different divisions in the points standings, as he almost has the Super Late Model title wrapped up, and is in a tight battle at the top of the SK Modified standings with a 2-point lead there as well. Over the past three weeks he has 10 starts, with 8 top tens and 7 of those are top five finishes to give him an average finish of 6th. Joe has two wins in that time as well, including one from the SK double features at Lanier, and he picked up a victory in the Pro Late Model race at Iowa. Joe will look to finish off the season on a high note with a chance at two championships, but rumor has it that some potential wheel issues may cause trouble for him, not only in these rankings but in the standings as well.

Just outside, looking in: Ian Layne, Derek Holzhausen, Darrell Hamlin, Scott Dunlap, Conner Blaise