X-Cart forums - custom template, error

I had a template i made off of subcats

its for boomers BMY mod, i want to list all brands in a 3 column layout.

it works fine, except the FIRST row/column is always blank.

I have the select to select all where brand is not null.

i has to do with the index looping in the code below

Code:

{ include file="location.tpl" last_location="Search by Brand"}

{ include file="customer/main/navigation.tpl" }

{capture name=dialog}

{assign var="tmp" value="0"}

{section name=cat_num loop=$brand}

{if $brand[cat_num].brand}{assign var="tmp" value="1"}{/if}

{/section}

{section name=cat_num loop=$brand}

{ if %cat_num.first% } 

<table border=0 cellspacing=5 width=100%> 

{/if} 

  {if $smarty.section.cat_num.index is div by 3} 

     </tr><tr valign="top"> 

  {/if} 

<td valign="top" width="33%" align="center">

<a class="VertMenuItems" href="bmy_search.php?brand={ $brand[cat_num].brand }">

{ $brand[cat_num].brand }</a>

   </td> 

{ if %cat_num.last% } 

</tr></table> 

{/if} 

{/section}

{if $smarty.section.cat_num.index is div by 3} seems to cause the output of </tr> at the beginning, but not sure why?

any ideas??

image below

http://www.etinteractive.com/misc/error.jpg