Brandon Jarsocrak (Photo: EKN)

Each season, there is a new name attached to the top of the eKartingNews.com TaG Driver Rankings. No driver has finished the following year back on top, and 2015 is no different as the competition seems even more heated. SoCal’s Jake Craig ended the 2014 season as the #1 driver in the country, and he earned the Superkarts! USA Fikse Wheels Pro Tour title in the process. Pennsylvania’s Brandon Jarsocrak took over the top position in July and he has continued to lead the standings for a second straight month, increasing his advantage while also assuming the point lead SKUSA’s national program.

Jarsocrak (Tony Kart) earned his first Pro Tour podium finish at the SummerNationals, backing it up with another run to the steps on Sunday, leaving New Castle as the top driver in the championship chase and padding his advantage in the EKN Driver Rankings. 2014 United States Pro Kart Series champion AJ Myers returned to the country after spending some time in Italy racing with the PCR factory team. Myers’ first two events were the SummerNationals at New Castle and USPKS race in South Bend the following week. Myers came away with a podium at the SummerNats, and top-fives at the USPKS event, but was still unable to match the improvement that Jarsocrak did to his point calculations.

A new name has jumped into the top-three and that is Elliot Finlayson. After a few outings aboard the CompKart chassis, the Illinois driver returned to the wheel of a Tony Kart at the USPKS South Bend event, picking up two runner-up results and assuming the championship lead going into the finale weekend. Advancing up to fourth is SpringNationals TaG Senior winner Oliver Askew. It was a struggle during the first day of the SummerNationals for the BirelART driver, but the Florida native bounced back on Sunday to land on the podium for a second time in the four rounds of competition. Fellow Floridian Dustin Stross (Tony Kart) fell two spots to fifth, but he remains in the USPKS title chase.

Senior rookie Christian Brooks (Tony Kart) elevated himself to the sixth position following a solid SummerNationals. A few strong heat race finishes and a top-five in the Sunday feature have pit him among the eight championship contenders heading into the SKUSA SuperNationals in Las Vegas. Craig (Formula K), last year’s champion, drops to the seventh position, as he salvaged two sixth-place finishes in New Castle to keep himself as the top challenger in the SKUSA title chase behind Jarsocrak.

New ‘Ironman’ Andrick Zeen is up into the top-10 thanks to his efforts at the USPKS South Bend weekend. A third place finish on Saturday by the Praga North America driver was followed up with another top-five performance on Sunday to push his EKN Rankings score above the 7000-point mark. The debut for Mason Marotta aboard a BirelART chassis produced a tough outing at the SummerNationals. His poor results translated over into the Driver Rankings calculations, dropping him down to ninth, three spots from last month’s position, but Mason holds onto an outside chance at the SKUSA title, as drivers must use their results from the SuperNationals in the championship tally. Completing the top-10 is Brenden Baker (Tony Kart). A top-five result at the SummerNationals pushed him up six positions forward in the standings.

Dropping out of the top-10 this month are Derek Dignan, Kyle Kirkwood and Dan Roeper. With the running of the United States Rotax Grand Nationals taking place this past weekend, those results will certainly jumble up the order at the top as the race is the first of two events that carries a base ranking of 10 points.

Upcoming EKN TaG Driver Rankings Events

Brandon Jarsocrak (Photo: EKN)

TaG #1 – Brandon Jarsocrak
Shillington, Pennsylvania

Now in the position as the top-ranked TaG driver in the country, there will be no more sleeper moves from the Pennsylvania driver. Over the last 12 months, Jarsocrak as crept up on the competition, slowing gaining momentum. Now the Tony Kart driver has all eyes on him, as he earning his first USPKS victory this April and now has two podiums at the SKUSA Fikse Wheels Pro Tour on his resume. Jarsocrak remains in the USPKS title fight, heading to one of his favorite and more successful tracks – New Castle. ‘Money’ will now make his first ever SuperNationals SuperSunday main event start after failing to qualify for the last two years, thanks to the SKUSA’s guaranteed starting spot program for the top-three in the Pro Tour standings.

Point Breakdown

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AJ Myers (Photo: EKN)

TaG #2 – AJ Myers
Tampa, Florida

The last few months have been a great experience for PCR driver AJ Myers. Myers was in Italy racing with the factory team, experiencing new adventures and learning more about racing at the next level. Returning to the United tates, Myers faired well in his first two events on home soil. Myers made it a second straight podium finish in Superkarts! USA competition, coming off the KZ2 podium result at the SuperNats last fall, finishing runner-up in the Saturday Final for TaG Senior at the SummerNats. He backed that up with two top-five results at the demanding Michiana Raceway Park facility during USPKS weekend. The results lowered his average finishing position, and elevated his score slightly, keeping him as the top challenger to Jarsocrak for the #1 ranking.

Point Breakdown

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Elliot Finlayson (Photo: EKN)

TaG #3 – Elliot Finlayson
Yorkville, Illinois

Like we have seen with Jarsocrak, Finlayson is breaking his way into the mix at the top level of TaG competition. Finlayson beat out Jarsocrak by scoring a podium result at the SpringNationals in the crazy Sunday final in Phoenix. The Tony Kart driver came back to record four straight top-five results at the USPKS program to move himself into the championship lead. Now the series heads to New Castle next week, the location of his first and only USPKS victory. If he focuses on the job at hand, not allowing the pressure and distractions to overcome, Finlayson could leave New Castle as the third different USPKS Leopard Pro champion in as many years.

Point Breakdown

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Braden Eves (Photo: EKN)

TaG ‘On the Move’ – #28
Braden Eves
Gahanna, Ohio

This month’s ‘On the Move’ driver can be found among the rookie class of 2015. Braden Eves made his first major start as a Senior at the SpringNationals in Phoenix in May, keeping within reach of a top-10 in a stacked field. The CompKart driver backed that up with a similar performance at New Castle for the SummerNationals. Eves has now moved full-time into the Senior ranks, beginning the year in USPKS competition at the Junior level, and was among the contenders in South Bend. Braden qualified quickest in Sunday’s round of racing, but contact took him out of contention for a run at the podium. Eves has found success at the New Castle course in Yamaha competition, and could reach the podium steps at the USPKS finale, which would certainly improve his EKN Driver Rankings position.

Point Breakdown

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 six in Stock Moto 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 2015, the SKUSA SuperNationals and US Rotax Max Challenge Grand Nationals receive a score of 10 in their initial weighting in the TaG category while the SuperNationals is the lone event in the Stock Moto division. The SKUSA Pro Tour series events draw a base ranking of nine (9), as does the United States Pro Kart Series, Florida Winter Tour Rotax Max Challenge, Rotax Challenge of the Americas. Other national and regional program races were given a base ranking of either 8.5 or 8.

The EKN staff reserves the right to adjust the rankings of each event throughout the year. A minimum entry total for any events 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 in TaG, six for Stock Moto, we calculate each driver’s overall score and subsequent ranking.

TaG Driver Rankings – as of August 7, 2015

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