Billy Musgrave remains in the top spot of the EKN Driver Rankings for Stock Honda (Photo: EKN)

2018 eKartingNews.com Stock Honda Driver Rankings powered by Bell Racing USA has reached the halfway point on the calendar year with a busy schedule of racing ahead of the karting community. Racing is in full swing as we are reaching the summer months with clubs and regional programs hitting the track while the national schedule looks to begin the second half of 2018.

Remaining on the top of the EKN Driver Rankings is current SKUSA Pro Tour championship leader Billy Musgrave. A string of four top-six results at the WinterNats and SpringNats puts the MRC / Aluminos driver as the top Stock Honda driver in North America today. Moving into the #2 spot is recent SpringNationals winner Nic LeDuc. A now two-time SKUSA Pro Tour race winner, LeDuc (SodiKart) is a viable contender for the SKUSA title along with the top spot in the EKN Driver Rankings. Falling from the second spot to third is last year’s #1 Jake French. The defending SKUSA Pro Tour champion sat out the SpringNationals, thus ending his chance at repeating and hurting the DKC / SodiKart driver’s position in the EKN Driver Rankings.

Up one spot is the newest S1 winner on the SKUSA Pro Tour Kyle Wick. The S1 rookie shined in Phoenix at the SpringNationals, earning his first class victory, moving into the top challenger position for the SKUSA Pro Tour title. Wick (RPG / CRG) enters the SummerNats second in the standings behind Musgrave, leading a solid group of drivers ready to contend for the crown in New Castle. Dropping one spot to fifth is last year’s top S2 driver Riley Dickinson. A hard flip at the SpringNats has the young DKC / SodiKart driver on the sidelines with the SummerNats on the schedule for his return to the seat.

Up three spots to sixth is S1 rookie Collin Daley. The Jamaican started the Winter Series in S2 before moving up to the S1 category for the SKUSA Pro Tour. While the podium has eluded the DRT Racing / DR Kart driver, be sure to see him toward the front at the SummerNationals. Down to seventh is Aluminos driver Hunter Pickett. The magic has not been there in 2018 for the NorCal driver, who has a best finish of fifth at the SpringNationals. SKUSA Winter Series S2 champion Rory van der Steur had his best weekend in the S1 division at the SpringNationals. Two runner-up finishes in Phoenix gave the Tony Kart driver his first podium results in the category, helping to boost him up to eighth in the EKN Driver Rankings.

Kol Bailey jumped into the top-10 for the first time in 2018, moving into ninth. The LEM / Praga driver is up five spots, also earning a best finish on the year at the SpringNats with a fifth place result. Rounding out the top-10 is Brian Keck (CRG), down three spots from his April position. Former Streets of Lancaster Grand Prix Scholarship winner Hunter Kelly (SodiKart) dropped out of the top-10 to 28th.

‘On the Move’ for the month of June is the current SKUSA Pro Tour S2 point leader Pedro Lopes. The 15-year-old from Brazil jumped into a Stock Honda for the first time at the SKUSA Winter Series, racking up some podiums in Florida. From there, Lopes has gone on to win all four SKUSA Pro Tour main events and leads the championship in a commanding fashion. It would not be a surprise to find the RPG / Kosmic driver into the top-10 following the SummerNationals.

Upcoming EKN Stock Honda Driver Rankings Schedule

(Photo: DromoPhotos.com)

Stock Moto #1 – Billy Musgrave
Norco, California

Reaching the #1 spot is not an easy task. Much like last year’s top driver Jake French, Musgrave puts 100% into his karting, hitting the track each and every weekend to find that extra tenth of a second, and to hit those consistent lap times to stay our in front. Of course, the work with the Aluminos brand has propelled the chassis to one of the top in the United States for shifterkart racing. Musgrave finds himself in a unique position at this point in the season. In addition to ripping off three straight victories at the California ProKart Challenge, he is leading the SKUSA Pro Tour standings heading into the series finale – the SummerNationals. The SoCal driver has won at New Castle, and may need to do so again if he hopes to leave Indiana with his first SKUSA Pro Tour championship.

Point Breakdown
Race,Rank,Finish,Points
SKUSA SummerNationals ’17 #1 – S1,9.5,5,1026
SKUSA SummerNationals ’17 #2 – S1,9.5,2,1058
SKUSA SuperNationals 2017 – S1,10,1,1177
SKUSA WinterNationals ’18 #1 – S1,9.5,3,998
SKUSA WinterNationals ’18 #2 – S1,9.5,2,1008
SKUSA SpringNationals ’18 #1 – S1,9.5,4,990
SKUSA SpringNationals ’18 #2 – S1,9.5,6,965

Inside the Stats
Average Finish: 3.29
Average Points: 1031.7
Total Points: 7222

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(Photo: EKN)

Stock Moto #2 – Nic LeDuc
Novato, California

One of the leading veteran shifterkart drivers in the country is Nic LeDuc. He is not your typical driver you see with a team surrounding him, a mechanic making all the changes, as he sits playing on social media or taking naps. LeDuc is hands on, as the driver, engineer, and lead mechanic. The NorCal native put the kart in the back of his pickup, and drove down to Phoenix, taking victory at the SpringNationals for a second straight year. That win helped moved him into the championship chase, behind Musgrave by only 104 points with two rounds of racing left, at a track he lived at for a few years. Things could be interesting in New Castle.

Point Breakdown
Race,Rank,Finish,Points
SKUSA SummerNationals ’17 #1 – S1,9.5,4,1037
SKUSA SummerNationals ’17 #2 – S1,9.5,4,1037
California ProKart Challenge ’17 #6 – S1,8.5,1,973
SKUSA SuperNationals 2017 – S1,9.5,7,1106
SKUSA WinterNationals ’18 #2 – S1,9.5,3,998
SKUSA SpringNationals ’18 #1 – S1,9.5,3,1000
SKUSA SpringNationals ’18 #2 – S1,9.5,1,1015

Inside the Stats
Average Finish: 3.29
Average Points: 1023.7
Total Points: 7166

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(Photo: EKN)

Stock Moto #3 – Jake French
Sachse, Texas

When you reach the top, the only place to go is back down. There is no doubt the 2017 season was a phenomenal year for French, including a streak of podium finishes that dated back to the summer of 2016. The streak came to an end at the WinterNationals and the shift in focus turned away from karting and moved over to the F4 US Championship. The DKC / SodiKart driver sat out the SpringNationals to prepare for the remaining car schedule. Unfortunately, a crash at Road Atlanta has put his racing on hold right now. So the question remains, does French come back to the SummerNationals and play spoiler, or do we see him continue to fall down the order and out of the top-10 as 2018 continues.

Point Breakdown
Race,Rank,Finish,Points
SKUSA SummerNationals ’17 #1 – S1,9.5,1,1069
SKUSA SummerNationals ’17 #2 – S1,9.5,1,1069
Texas ProKart Challenge ’17 #5 – S2,8.5,1,932
Texas ProKart Challenge ’17 #6 – S2,8.5,1,932
SKUSA SuperNationals 2017 – S1,10,2,1165
SKUSA WinterNationals ’18 #1 – S1,9.5,10,927
SKUSA WinterNationals ’18 #2 – S1,9.5,5,978

Inside the Stats
Average Finish: 3.00
Average Points: 1010.3
Total Points: 7072

EKN Driver Rankings Calculation Process
The EKN Driver Rankings are calculated using a driver’s best finishes in major North American races. Assembled using events from the previous 12 months from the current date, we use a driver’s best seven finishes in TaG and Stock Honda to determine their overall current point total. With each new release, results posted from more than one year ago are discarded. To deliver our ranking list, we tabulate the results of all the national programs and selected regional programs. We have included the results for the major one-off events such as the SKUSA SuperNationals, the US Rotax Max Challenge Grand Nationals, the Rock Island Grand Prix, and the Streets of Lancaster Grand Prix.

Each race is initially weighted based on the prestige and history of the event or series with a score of ten (10) being the highest attainable base ranking. For 2018, the SKUSA SuperNationals will receive a score of 10 in its initial weighting in the TaG and Stock Honda categories. A base ranking of 9.5 is set for the SKUSA Pro Tour, while a base ranking of 9 goes to the SKUSA Winter Series, United States Pro Kart Series, Florida Winter Tour, Challenge of the Americas, Rok the Rio, Rock Island Grand Prix, US Rotax Max Challenge Grand Nationals, and California ProKart Challenge. Other national and regional program races were given a base ranking of either 8.5 or 8.0.

The EKN staff reserves the right to adjust the rankings of each event throughout the year. A minimum entry total for any event to be considered for the Driver Rankings program is five (5). If an event does not have at least five (5) drivers starting the race, those results will not be tabulated toward the Driver Rankings.

Added to these initial rankings are two variables that help confirm the true importance of an event to the ranking process – field size and field strength. A percentage of one weighting point is added for the size of the field, while the number of existing top 50 drivers entered offers another full point or fraction of a point. The sum of these numbers becomes the overall ranking for any race.

Following a race, drivers receive points based on their finishing positions with 100 points earned for a win. Each subsequent position drops by one point with 99 points given to the second-place driver and so on throughout the field. These points are then multiplied by the overall ranking to produce a driver’s final point total from each event. Using a driver’s best seven races, we calculate each driver’s overall score and subsequent ranking.

eKartingNews.com Stock Honda Driver Rankings powered by Bell Racing USA – as of June 11, 2018

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