If Bob Wicks is disappointed in this game, just wait till the last day of baseball season.	Pat Mirk, Rob Winslow, Tom DeMarco and Kevin Wojtaszczyk plot their routes.

Although attendance was down, it remained steady with five games each in the first two heats and four in the third. Vien Bounma took top score in the preliminaries with 216 in a 4-player game. For the second consecutive year Andy Lewis had the lowest winning score with 131. While scoring was down from prior years, we set a record for cash. 2005 champ Bill Peeck raked in $97 and Vien only needed $27 to win his game. The West Coast baron went to 2007 champ Grant LaDue for making 13 connections with the 7-pt cities.

In semi-final action, Mike Shea won in a short game scoring only three of his four city cards, but grabbed enough money to win. Pat Mirk took down a pair of former champs by building a stronghold in the southwest with double Los Vegas, Salt Lake City and scored 14 in Los Angeles and San Francisco to end any new title hopes for two-time champ Kevin Wojtaszczyk and defending champ Tom DeMarco. Steve Shambeda won his short game with none of the pocket trains arriving. He led in cash and scored with all 6 city cards in play while connecting a good string of northern cities (Bismark, Casper, Rapid City and Spokane) to defeat 2006 champ Bob Wicks. Bill Peeck squeaked by Mike Wojtasczyk in the closest semi by four points. He played seven cities with value 6 or better compared to Mike's two.

Semi #1
Mike Shea 44 cash + 26 cities( 4) = 70
Vien Bounma 9 cash + 54 cities( 6) = 54
Andy Lewis 30 cash + 20 cities( 3) = 50
Grant LaDue 18 cash + 18 cities( 3) = 36

Semi #2
Pat Mirk 34 cash + 158 cities(12) = 192
Kevin Wojtasczyk 47 cash + 137 cities(11) = 184
Tom DeMarco 33 cash + 133 cities(12) = 166
Rob Winslow 55 cash + 117 cities(10) = 162

Semi #3
Steve Shambeda 48 cash + 56 cities( 6) = 104
Bob Wicks 39 cash + 52 cities( 6) = 91
Phil White 24 cash + 45 cities( 7) = 69
Kevin Lewis 28 cash + 40 cities( 5) = 68

Semi #4
Bill Peeck 22 cash + 142 cities(11) = 164
Mike Wojtasczyk 59 cash + 101 cities( 8) = 160
William Hoch 38 cash + 111 cities( 8) = 149
Chad Gormly 25 cash + 84 cities( 7) = 109

Bill was the only previous champion of the six present to make it back to the Final. Pat and Steve were making their first appearance and Mike was making his third run at the title. Early in the game the Kansas Pacific was pushed north and reached as far as Portland by way of Spokane and Bismark. The Great Northern had reached Billings. Meanwhile the rest of the trains were focused south in the area of Dallas and Oklahoma City. Steve was invested in the southwest. Bill played mainly eastern cites and played Las Vegas in the west. Mike was grabbing money early only having San Francisco and San Antonio in play. Pat also was grabbing cash, only revealing Amarillo and Dallas early. Southern Lines Pacific went on the next run being helped by Steve and Pat both taking 4 in 1. Steve connected Las Vegas and Salt Lake City and Pat connected through Albuquerque and El Paso. By this point Mike had made Steve look like the bad guy and kept taking trains to stay away from the southwest. Over the last four turns Bill played four cities to gain 48pts. Steve only played two cities for 31pts but did play a 21pt-Portland after playing a 2x the turn before. Mike gained 47 with three cities and a boomtown Turn 14 to help Minneapolis. Pat also played four city cards for 53 pts, making a late charge in the end. The deck and trains ran out on Turn 15. Pat and Bill had the most city points. However, a very late Portland draw worth 21pts along with the most cash gained, made Mike Shea our eighth champion in nine years and gave him his first WBC title in a year when he would win two.

Final Scores
Mike Shea 47 cash + 134 cities(10) = 181
Pat Mirk 35 cash + 141 cities(10) = 176
Bill Peeck 29 cash + 141 cities(12) = 170
Steve Shambeda 21 cash + 115 cities(10) = 136

In the five games for which I have received full trackers, we were back to six cities topping out over 20 points (Denver, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Portland and San Francisco). Salt Lake was the only city to top 20 twice. When we track cities scoring 15 or more, we add six more cities to the list. No cities scored 12+ in all five games due to two of the games ending early. In two of the games Minneapolis was boomtowned with three trains. The most common city was Canada and Bismark among three of the five winners.

Vien Bounma, Andy Lewis, Grant LaDue and Michael Shea.	GM Rob Kircher and his finalists.