Rinker Takes Home Hardware

NEW ROADS, Louisiana: May 29, 2005 – Terry Rinker snapped his year and one-half losing streak and took the monkey off his back by coming from behind to win the 4th Annual False River Powerboat Championship’s from New Roads, Louisiana to open up the 2005 ChampBoat Racing season.

The native of Tampa, Florida who won the championship back in 2003 introduced his new boat, a Lee hull, to take his first victory since St. Louis in August of that year. Pole sitter Tim Seebold led the field from the start and charged his way into the lead and slowly pulled away from the 14 boat field before his power trim started to fail him at the one-third mark dropping him to a disappointing 5th place at the finish after qualifying a fast 125.5 mph on Saturday.

Rinker held the point until Chandler, Arizona driver Jason Campbell moved his 4 year old boat, also a Lee hull, past Rinker and into the lead at almost the halfway point of the event. The battle for the top spot went on lap after lap with Campbell pulling away by as much as 3 seconds before Rinker closed to within a second. With 3 laps to go to the end everything went wrong for Campbell as his boat blew a hole in the bottom enough to remove the top cowling and send him back into 2nd giving Rinker the win.

Rinker Holding the Checkered Flag

Chis Fairchild of North Aurora, Illinois cruised his Hooter’s machine to a steady 3rd place finish holding off last year’s winner Todd Bowden of Monrovia, California who finished two seconds behind in his back up boat in 4th position.

After Tim Seebold’s 5th place was Wyatt Nelson of Cazenovia, N.Y. who despite 3 separate infractions including hitting a bouy finished a fine 6th position in his Italian DAC hull. In 7th position was once again rookie Dennis Kiepadlo of Michigan who has returned to power boat racing full time for the first time in 17 years. His son finished 12th.

Rookies Brian Normand was 8th and Brian Venton of Toronto, Ontario Canada was 9th. Florida driver J.R. Saffold, who won the SST-120 event from the pole earlier in the day came home in 10th place.

Rounding out the field was Jeff Reno in a quality effort in his back up boat for the Florida driver in 11th, while Lynn Simberger of Antioch, Illinois dropped out early for a disappointing 13th while Ned Mihajlovic of Serbia was the final contestant in 14th position in the 50 lap event.

The ChampBoat Racing Series sets off for its 2nd round in two weeks on June 11th and 12th in Sault Saint Marie, Michigan as the series stops off for the 2nd straight year.