Some might have noticed that the power rankings were absent during the past week after the turmoil of week one. Well, that was no mistake as we wanted to double check the formula being used to find the rankings. We found a few minor adjustments that needed to be made and the extra weeks allowed more drivers to accrue more points and to even out the standings a bit. This week we are also going to try to give a little insight about how the standings work so people don't lose their minds when a driver they feel should be higher is not.
So how does the ranking system work? Well, it's based off a set of criteria that is used for every driver and class. We take into account the car counts, heat finishes, consi finishes, and feature finishes for the weekly points total. We also found that we needed to reward those who raced more than one race per week. Why? Well, there's more at risk when it comes to racing more races. Does this penalize those who only race once a week? No. They earn the points that they earn and are not penalized for racing only once. The final power ranking is then based off a continuous three week span. This means that the power ranking will always be based off three weeks and is always dropping the oldest race which is replaced by the most recent week of racing.
Why, we are going off of this is very simple on a couple points. One, we literally can't be everywhere and see every race. It's just physically not possible and we can't make a ranking off of an opinion. The second issue is putting one person's view of a driver against another's. We don't want people to think there is biasness and by going by the formula that the group put together really takes biasness out of our hands and let's the numbers do the talking. Is it a points series? No, it literally only looks at a three week snapshot of the season and moves onto the next week. It also puts a lot of emphasis on being consistent and that puts the rankings really into the drivers hands.
It will take one or two more weeks before every class has three weeks under their belt and balances out the west and the east side of the state. One example of this will be the IMCA classes as Red River has only two weeks under its belt and Jamestown has one, while Dacotah Speedway and Nodak have three. This should balance itself out after next week for the most part.
Some notable changes are the additions of two tracks (Ada and Buffalo River) and the following of the NOSA 410 Sprint series, NLRA late model series, and the lightning sprints. The logic behind this is that it gives more opportunities for drivers to receive points and because there are so few late model and 410 sprint races in the state.
Hopefully, this gives everyone a better insight of the inner workings of the overall power rankings and how they work. Is it perfect? No, but it's not biased and it is meant to be something fun for everyone to talk about each week. So without further ado let's take a look at this weeks power rankings!
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