Chris Gnech, Don Tatum and Charlie Hickok	Elaine Pearson, Deniz Bucak and Patrick Murphy
Kate Sohn, Rod Spade and James Savarick	Gregory Schmittgens, Craig Reece and Patrick Shea

Attendance was down 15% probably due to my choice to go with two heats instead of three, but the reduction in heats is compensated somewhat by the Century formula so it may not have much effect either way in terms of the event's chances of a return engagement.

Only defending champ Nick Henning had previous AUT laurels among the finalists. But it was Romain Jacques who gradually got into all three markets, building the mid-price Thomas Flyer in the first turn, expanding to the luxury Crane-Simplex on the Turn 2, and buying into the economy class with the Hupmobile R on Turn 3, while adding his parts factory on Turn 4. (The Final was played on the Treefrog board. For those using the Mayfair edition, that's the Overland Model 40 mid-price, Apperson luxury and Chrysler S 60 economy.)

Romain was confident of his sales strategy through most of the game, passing without taking an executive action on the first three turns. By the last turn, the other three finalists agreed that Romain was in the lead (he only carried over two loss cubes; the others had seven or eight each). The players confidently over-produced economy cars on the last turn, building 34 cars, even though the maximum that can be sold is 32, with all ten distributors spots filled, Howard selling economy cars, and four 5s drawn from the sack. It didn't happen that way.

Romain's strategy appeared to be loss-management, taking Chrysler to reduce loss cubes on Turns 1 and 3, Howard to get a few more sales on Turn 2, and Sloan (to cut his game end loss cubes in half) on the last turn. He enjoyed the added benefit that no one else could take Sloan. Nick Henning, behind at the end by only 140 points, generated a few too many loss cubes, opening the Franklin Model A (Jackson Model 40 on the Mayfair board, third oldest car type) on Turn 1 and not closing it until Turn 4.

Romain did the best job of handling his losses over the four turns of the Final, and won the tournament with a score of 4700. Defending champ Nick Henning was second with 4560 points, followed by Jack Jung with 4040 and Robert "At least I made a profit" Cranshaw with 2850 points.

It seems that overall sales strategy has evolved for the better as the game ages, with Howard being the most popular character choice in the heats and semifinal games, picked 27 times. The least popular choice was Sloan, only picked nine times.

GM Gregory Schmittgens and his finalists.