For Steve David and the Oberto team, it was a near perfect weekend.  He won all four of his heats, with the only glitch coming in the form of a 150 point penalty in heat 1-A on Saturday for a lane infraction.

Courtesy: ABRA Media Relations

Steve David of Lighthouse Point, Florida parlayed a nearly perfect weekend in the U-1 Oh Boy! Oberto to score lane one in the winner take all final heat of the 2009 Lamb Weston Columbia Cup in the Tri-Cities of South Central Washington.  From there, the defending Columbia Cup Champion cruised to victory.  JW Meyers of Burien, Washington, subbing for Jean Theoret in the U-37 Hoss Mortgage Investors, gave Jeff Bernard of Kent, Washington a great battle for second place before settling for third, while Bernard held on at the finish for second. 

When asked to describe the final heat, David said, "We wired the start and that was it.  I knew that Bernard and Myers would be fast, so we needed a great start, and we got it."

For David and the Oberto team, it was a near perfect weekend.  He won all four of his heats, with the only glitch coming in the form of a 150 point penalty in heat 1-A on Saturday for a lane infraction.  That reduced the team's points for the win from 400 to 250 and kept two time 2009 winner Dave Villwock of Auburn, Washington, driver of the U-16 Ellstrom's Elam Plus atop the national high point standings after the Saturday heats.

But as the weekend wore on, Villwock and the Elam team encountered continued bad luck.  They were hampered by electrical problems with the usually flawless boat, as well as a string of infractions that reduced their point total going into the final to just 95.  Villwock was the trailer boat in the final, finishing in fourth place.

As team owner Erick Ellstrom put it, "You have to have a lot of things go right to have a good weekend, and we just had a lot of things go bad."

 J Michael Kelly of Puyallup, Wahington survived a scary and spectacular accident when his U-7 Graham Trucking took to the sky while chasing Steve David in heat 2-A.  The boat did more than a complete revolution in the air before landing upsided down, but Kelly got himself out of the boat and was standing on the bottom waiting when rescue crews arrived.

David scored 1450 points over the course of the event, to just 564 for Villwock.  The Oberto team will head to Seattle leading in high points with a 599 point advantage over their rivals on team Elam..

Final order of finish: 1st-Steve David, Oh Boy! Oberto, 2nd-Jeff Bernard U-5 Formulaboats.com, 3rd JW Myers U-37 Hoss Mortgage Investors, 4th-Dave Villwock U-16 Ellstrom's Elam Plus, 5th-Kip Brown U-17 West Pasco Family Dental, 6th Brian Perkins U-48 Whirlpool Presents Miss Albert Lee.

Next event:  Chevrolet Cup at Seafair (Seattle) July 31-August 2, 2009

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