Eastern Iowa Driver Rankings: May 4

Welcome to the Inside Track's Eastern Iowa Driver Rankings. Each week of the racing season, the Gazette's Jeremiah Davis will rank the area's top 10 drivers across all divisions.

Think the list should be different? Tweet him at @jeremiahdavis10, send him an email at jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com or leave a comment at The Inside Track by Jeremiah Davis Facebook page.

New this week: Mother Nature

Dropped out: None

Others considered (in no order):  Tyler Droste, Troy Cordes, Matt Ryan, Zach Less, Bryce Garnhart, Ronn Lauritzen, Jeff Aikey, Norman Chesmore, Jeremiah Hurst, Mark Schulte, Mitch Morris, Chris Zogg, Brunson Behning, Rob Toland, Ricky Thornton Jr., Tom Berry Jr., Mitch Hovden, Dan Hovden, Patrick Flannagan

RANK

+/-

NAME

CLASS

THOUGHTS

1

NR

Mother Nature

The Sky

Aside from everyone reading this who relies on rain for farming, I think we can all agree: rain sucks. For the first time in the three years I've been covering racing in Eastern Iowa, Mother Nature totally washed out an entire weekend. Friday through Sunday saw Eastern Iowa tracks soaking wet. For that, Mother Nature wins the week. Here's to hoping she doesn't make a return.

1a

--

Kyle Brown

Modified

I've said before: I will not penalize drivers for rainouts in the rankings. So Kyle Brown remains 1a to Mother Nature's 1. Brown did get to race this weekend, though. He made the (long) haul from State Center to Fairmont, Minn. for some racing. He ended up seventh. Shows you how bad he wanted to race given he traveled that far. 

2

--

Tyler Soppe

Sport Mod

As I wrote last week, his new car has served him well so far in 2016. He had a lot of bad luck last season - even while working his way into the rankings for most of the season. He lost out on a few wins and several top fives because of it. He's been able to avoid it early this season, and the results have reflected it. 

3

--

Nathan Ballard

Hobby Stock

The rain this weekend was positive in one aspect for Ballard: He got to spend a bunch of time getting his IMCA Sport Mod ready to roll. Rumor has it he'll debut the 29 Sport Mod on Sunday at Benton County Speedway in Vinton. Not sure yet if he'll race both that and his IMCA Hobby Stock, but it'll be very interesting to see how quick he picks up the Sport Mod.

4

--

Benji Irvine

Hobby Stock

He doesn't really run for points anywhere anymore, so it's fun to see where he heads and what he's able to do on some different tracks. He did the same thing last season, and it didn't really hurt his performance. He's even gone up to Upper Iowa Speedway and Fayette County Speedway and run against the USRA competition. 

5

--

Tony Olson

Sport Mod

He did get to race this weekend - but only on iRacing. The Inside Track cannot confirm nor deny how fast he was among his group of friends. In other news, the bad luck Tyler Soppe hit last season and has avoided this season flipped to Olson, it seems. He's a generally positive guy at the track, but a motivated Tony Olson is bad news for the IMCA Sport Mod crowd.

6

--

Kyle Olson

Sport Mod

Kyle's fans are loyal and passionate, and that was made pretty evident after his wins two weeks ago. Kyle was gifted a broom and dust pan last week after his sweep of Independence Motor Speedway and Benton County Speedway in IMCA Sport Mod. And hey, with the rain, he probably put the new broom to good use over the weekend.

7

--

Damon Murty

Stock Car

Farming took him away from the track two weeks ago, and the rain last weekend probably kept him out of the field. Either way, it'll be good to get back to normal without so much rain this week. His fellow Stock Car racers were actually probably disappointed he couldn't race two weeks ago. A win at Vinton doesn't mean as much if the Chelsea Charger isn't there.

8

--

JD Auringer

Modified

Something I didn't have room to write about last week: Auringer finished top five at Vinton two weeks ago with a broken right rear shock mount. He and Ronn Lauritzen laughed about it after the race, as Auringer's left front was hiked up in the air as he raced for the lead - not something that's normally characteristic of his setups. Always impressive seeing guys run well with broken parts.

9

--

Justin Kay

Late Model

This doesn't really have much to do with his performance, but this is my space to write and it rained all weekend, so here goes: I love the new white paint scheme he's got for 2016. It's a big change - he had the orange car for several years - but the way the 2016 wrap turned out, it looks sharp. That said, it will take some getting used to at those Open and IMCA Deery Bros shows.

10

--

Tyler Bruening

Late Model

Bruening's confidence is super high right now. As I wrote last week, he learned a lot down in Florida, and as much as it's helped his team and their new cars on the track, it's helped off the track. At times last year you could sense some frustration in the Bruening camp, but that's been absent this year. Winning is the expectation.

Previous weeks: April 27

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com