Chevy sets pace for sponsor teams at Big O
Chevy way in front of Division I; Pepcid Complete douses Division II competition
More sponsors + more teams + more talent = the most competitive year ever among sponsored anglers competing along the Wal-Mart FLW Tour in 2006.
Though strictly unofficial, competition among sponsored teams has provided great tournament-fishing drama for fans in recent years. Familiar brand names bounce around the leaderboard like ping-pong balls in a Bingo machine right up until the final regular-season event of the season. At that point, two teams – always sporting an aggregate of the most consistently successful pros – emerge as champions and are awarded unlimited bragging rights.
More than 20 teams – separated into two divisions based on team numbers – hurled themselves headlong into sponsor-team competition when the FLW Tour visited Lake Okeechobee last month, kicking off what is already shaping up to be an incredibly exciting season.
Team Chevy shook things up in Florida, surging past the pack with an average score a full 13 points higher than any other team, regardless of divisional seating. Division I teams are less likely to earn the highest scores – based on a 200 scale – at any given tournament due to the difficulty involved in having all members of a larger team perform at near-peak levels. But Chevy bucked that trend, earning an incredible team score of 170. Team Pepcid Complete, new this season, dominated Division II competition, earning 183 points and an event win at the Big O.
Like in years past, sponsor teams are divided into two divisions: Division I, comprising teams of three or more professional anglers, and Division II, comprising teams of fewer than three pros. Keep tabs on your favorite teams’ progress as they compete this week on Lake Murray in the second FLW Tour event of the six-tournament regular season. If you’re not in South Carolina to see the bass-fishing action unfold in person, you can keep an eye on the anglers via FLWOutdoors.com’s cutting-edge live weigh-in application, FLW Live.
Look for results from Lake Murray in upcoming weeks. Results from Okeechobee, as well as an explanation of team scoring, are detailed below:
Division I
Team Chevy blew past runner-up Team BFGoodrich Tires by more than 35 points thanks to the amazing consistency of its members. Five Chevy pros finished in the top 25 at Okeechobee among a full field of 200 pros overall.
Veteran FLW Tour pro and 2001 Big O winner David Fritts of Lexington, N.C., was in the driver’s seat for Team Chevy, earning an outstanding fifth-place finish. Two more renowned veterans of the FLW Tour, Larry Nixon of Bee Branch, Ark. – with a stellar 16th-place finish – and Kim Stricker of Howell, Mich. – who climbed the board to 22nd – also lent credence to the idea that 2006 will not necessarily be the Year of the Young Guns. In the latter camp, however, was Team Chevy’s own “Cool Hand” Luke Clausen of Spokane, Wash., who was crowned supreme champion of the FLW Tour to cap his rookie year in 2004.
Though a 35-point lead is considerable, Team Chevy will have its work cut out for it in staying ahead of BFGoodrich Tires. Leading the latter team’s offensive is pro Chad Grigsby of Maple Grove, Minn., who is unquestionably on a tear. Grigsby picked up his fourth career FLW Tour top-10 with a ninth-place finish at the Big O, where he also placed ninth in 2005. Grigsby’s highest tour finish to date came at the end of 2005 when he earned runner-up status at the FLW Tour Championship.
And the next couple teams in line on the leaderboard aren’t far behind: Team Castrol is in third place with 125 points while fourth-place Team Berkley, a new team in 2006, trails by only one point.
Division II
Young Uniontown, Pa., pro Jason Knapp’s 18th-place finish at Okeechobee rocketed Pepcid to the top of the Division II standings with one event down in 2006.
After Team Pepcid, things are tight in the upper echelon of Division II competition, with only 27 points separating the next seven slots out of 13 total teams. The next-best couple of teams in the Division II ranks are Team Poulan-Weed Eater with 157 points and the new Team Wal-Mart with 154.
But the hottest Division II pro represented the third-place team, Pedigree. Cullman, Alabama’s Greg Pugh was back at it again on Okeechobee, where he top-10d last year, earning an enviable 12th-place finish to help Team Pedigree register a 145-point average to kick off the season.
Explanation of team scoring
Points in the 2006 sponsor-team race will be earned during the FLW Tour’s six qualifying events and monitored throughout the season. Standings are based on the average number of points earned by a team’s anglers as assigned in the FLW Tour’s Land O’Lakes Angler of the Year competition.
Sponsor teams competed in the most recent FLW Tour tournament at Lake Okeechobee near Clewiston, Fla., and results from that event have been tallied:
Division I (teams with three or more anglers)
1. Chevy – 170.40
2. BFGoodrich Tires – 135
3. Castrol – 125
4. Berkley – 124
5. National Guard – 101.75
6. Snickers – 96
7. Kellogg’s – 83.60
8. Tyson – 81.33
9. A&W – 69
10. Land O’Lakes – 40.33
11. Fuji – 59.60
Division II (teams with fewer than three anglers)
1. Pepcid – 183
2. Poulan-Weed Eater – 157
3. Wal-Mart – 154
4. Pedigree – 145
5. Tylenol Rapid Release – 139
6. Hamburger Helper – 135
7. Banana Boat – 132
8. Tylenol Severe Allergy – 130
9. Wet Ones – 122
10. Ozark Trail – 116
11. Suave – 94
12. Lawry’s – 85
13. Imodium Advanced – 48
Other standout performances at the Big O among anglers on sponsored teams included a 14th-place finish for Team A&W Root Beer’s Shad Schenck; Team Catrol’s twin attack from 15th-place Darrel Robertson and 17th-place Carl Svebek III; and 23rd for Tim Klinger, representing a new team, Army National Guard.