For several years the state has consistently delivering a half dozen teams to the TARC finals. These teams from Alabama scored in the top hundred ranking nationally and will compete for the 2022 championship against teams from 26 states on May 14 at The Plains, Virginia as they vie for $100,000 in prizes and an all-expense paid trip to London for the International Finals.

The schools and cities are:

Tharptown High School*, Russellville

Lincoln High School*, Lincoln

Russellville High Schools*, Russellville

West Morgan Middle School, Trinity

Colbert County 4-H, Tuscumbia

Muscle Shoals High School, Muscle Shoals

*Were also at the finals last year. Russellville finished in fifth place.

Other Alabama teams selected as alternates are Phil Campbell High School, Phil Campbell, and Hackleburg High School, Hackleburg.

HARA would like to salute the seven Huntsville area teams for their efforts in building and flying this year:

Girl Scouts of North-Central Alabama (2 rookie teams)

Civil Air Patrol – Redstone Squadron

St. John Paul II C.H.S. (2 teams)

Bob Jones High School

James Clemens High School.

Thanks to the rest of these Alabama schools for registering and participating in TARC.

Cullman Area Technology Academy, Cullman

Thompson High School, Alabaster

Alabama School of Mathematics and Science, Mobile

Hewitt Trussville High School (4 teams), Trussville

Winfield City High School, Winfield.

It was a foggy morning June 12 when the launch began but the ten finalist teams from Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee attended and made all twenty allowable flights. When all the scores were tallied nationally Russellville High School Team One from Russellville, Alabama came in fifth and won $8500. Tharptown High School, also from Russellville, made ninth. Alabama was the only state besides California to have two teams finish in the top ten. Hosted by the Birmingham Rocket Boys NAR section and led by President Ronald Dunn plenty of volunteers were on hand to set up, run the range and score the flights. It was an admirable performance by NAR to complete the TARC program for the pandemic year by spreading the finals out to ten regional fields. HARA was represented by Vince, Bill and Duane, who had fun with various timing and scoring duties. No eggs were broken by the teams, but two flights ejected the motors and unfortunately had to be disqualified.

Here are the finals scores of the schools at the Birmingham launch.

Place            School            City        State  Total Flight 1  Flight 2

In a very anomalous TARC season that began in 2019 these teams from Alabama scored in the top one hundred ranking nationally and will compete in the finals to close out 2021. It’s almost the same group that made the finals last time. http://hararocketry.org/hara/six-alabama-tarc-teams-going-to-finals-in-virginia/

The schools and cities are:

Tharptown High School T1, Russellville
Lincoln High School, Lincoln
Russellville High School T1, Russellville
Russellville High School T2, Russellville
Winfield City High School, Winfield
Hewitt-Trussville High School, Trussville
Hackleburg High School, Hackleburg

Other Alabama teams selected as alternates are:

Tharptown High School T2, Russellville
Civil Air Patrol – Redstone Composite Squadron, Huntsville
St. John Paul II C.H.S.,  Huntsville

The cutoff score for making the top 100 this year was 37.06, which is respectable considering the contagion circumstances. It was 36 in 2019, the last “normal” year. There were 615 teams in TARC-2021 and although many of them were never able to get together, build, and fly due to COVID, TARC still ended up with 282 teams submitting qual flight scores.

Rather than have the finals with all 100 teams in Virginia as usual, the finals will be broken down to eleven regional sites with fewer teams present on each field. The Birmingham Rocket Boys NAR Section will host TARC June 12. The results from those flights will be sent to TARC headquarters which will compile the scores and announce the winners at the TARC 2021 Awards ceremony (online) on June 28.

Congratulations to these teams for their success and the opportunity to represent the state. Russellville High won first place in TARC in 2015.