Twenty-seven drivers with seventy boats were welcomed by the Charleston Model Boaters to the 2005 South Carolina Championships. The weather was perfect with the exception of a late Saturday afternoon thunderstorm that ended racing for the day at the start of round three. This delay caused the race to be shortened to four rounds.

The tunnel classes were well represented again with nine boats entered in B Tunnel. Mike Talley made the ride from Alabama and showed the fast way around the lake in both B Tunnel & Sport B by taking first in both classes with his OS powered Lynxs. He won all but one heat in the two classes and looks to be one of the favorites at the Tunnel Championships in September. Don Gilbert took top honors in the D tunnel class to take the Series lead from Tony Atwell who finished third behind Kevin Lee. Mike was again the winner in Open tunnel with a K&B powered Shaman. Mitch Atwell was able to pad his Season series lead over James Clegg with a second place finish.
The nitro mono classes are beginning to pick up and should be very competitive the rest of the year. Bob Halliday Sr. prevented Bobby Halliday from sweeping the classes by proving once again "To finish first you must first finish". Bob Sr. was the only 20 Mono to finish all four heats and took first place with his pink Seaducer powered by a Nova Rossi over Bobby and Ryan Knight who were only separated by 50 points. Bobby took the top spot in 40, 60 & F with OPS powered Sightlers.
John Knight swept the nitro hydro classes. John's Nova Rossi powered Diamondback took top honors in B Hydro over James Clegg and John now trails James by 3 points on the season. James finished 2nd to John again in 40 Hydro. In 60 Hydro John used his MAC powered Roadrunner to finish ahead of John Brown and Don Gilbert. In F Hydro John took first place by 25 points over John Steltzer and now trails him by 204 points on the season.

Team Huff showed up to support the gas classes and were the only gas boats here this weekend. They put on a good show in LSG 23-30 & Open Mono. The boats are all evenly matched since they all run Zenoah powered Microbursts. Scott took the top spot in 23-30 over Kathy and Don and Kathy took first over Don and Scott in Open Mono. Open Mono was separated by only 150 points 1st - 3rd.

Mitch Atwell took first in Sport 40 to move past Randy McCarty on the season by 73 points and Stan Sova drove his Squire Shop to the top spot in Scale Hydro to extend his lead over Randy to 448 points. Looks like our District Scale Director is going to walk away with the class. Don Huff beat out Scott and Stan in Crackerbox to create a three-way tie for first on the season. This class will really be tough in the remaining two races. Scott Huff finished ahead of Don and John Steltzer to win Offshore and take the Series points lead.

The next race is the penultimate round in Atlanta, the Georgia Championships September 3 & 4th.

See you there!
Bobby Halliday