New ICORE club in NE Illinois

[Cherryriver]

The affiliation process is nearing the end, so I feel safe in announcing the formation of a new ICORE club in the northeastern Illinois area.

The Will County Wheelgunners are based at the Oak Park Sportsmens Club in Plainfield, Illinois. This is near I-55 not far off the Ill. Rt. 126 exit, about forty miles southwest of Chicago.

The inaugural match is set for 9am CDT, Sunday, May 30th. We're planning four field courses and one classifier.

Setup will be the afternoon prior.

The club has a busy match schedule of pretty much every discipline there is, so future dates will be a developing subject. The club is working on building more bays to allow separated match shooting but a completion timeline is not set. We're hoping to get in one more yet this season and see how the response is.

The club's website is at www.opsc.ws.

[Bubber]

Good luck with the ICORE Club in Illinois. Word of advise..be wary of that Scott Fish fellar. He says he is a B class shooter but whoops me everytime he gets near me... . Great Guy I hope he is close enough to participate cause I know he likes revos. later rdd

[John Z Sr]

Best of luck to you with ICORE, invite your local USPSA and IDPA shooters

[Cherryriver]

We ARE our local USPSA/IDPA shooters. I run the USPSA program at NPCCC in Chesterton and do IDPA matches there, too.

I had to arm-wrestle guys into joining ICORE just to meet the minimum.

It appears that the new blood we might be attracting will come from the cowboy ranks. If only we can get them to stop with the thumb-cocking...

[Cherryriver]

I'm updating to add that we've selected CS-025 as the classifier stage, "Run Billy, Run Bill, Run William".

Please note this had nothing to do with any official's name.

At this time, we're expecting a round count of about 120.

Already, a few clubmates of the self-loading persuasion have expressed some reluctance to beg, borrow, or steal sixguns, despite our making some available for experimentation.

My long 686 is going to a buddy who keeps winning my IDPA matches with a 1911, if only she takes the count-to-six challenge. I'm holding out another, the 28, for yet another cylindrically-challenged friend. That only leaves me the Diamondback with K-Comp IIIs to loan out.

One cohort, an IDPA match director at another club, suggested that turnout would be low if we declined to allow bottomfeeders (as we are declining to do). I of course smeared his lack of diversity and narrowness of mind.

Another recommended ditching the classifier(s) so as to attract more shooters. Never mind that the program founders were strongly interested in getting classified up themselves, I suppose.

Now, if we can just get the weather adjusted properly...

[Cherryriver]

A followup-

Our first ICORE match at Oak Park SC in Plainfield, Illinois was what we would like to think was a success. The turnout was 28 shooters, which we think is a solid number given the Memorial Day holiday weekend and the 90-some degree heat.

The setup help was excellent, with even non-revolver types pitching in in a nice show of solidarity with the new ICORE program.

The turnout was a nice mix of USPSA, IDPA, SASS, PPC, and other "brands" of competitors all getting together to run wheelguns. Indeed, one ace single-stacker friend put my 686 to good use by cleaning my clock with it, before returning it and the related gear with the parting comment: "Back to bottom-feeding for me!"

A ninth overall, using borrowed Retro stuff, for a person never having shot a wheelgun previously is a creditable job, I'd say.

We're trying to think of ways to get potential competitors to join ICORE itself. Increasing the membership would certainly work to everyone's good. Any suggestions?

Given that the match director (yours truly, again) had never put on a match at this particular club before, there really weren't too many glitches to speak of.

One tip, though- if you're a new MD at a club, be sure to check in advance which way the club's various disciplines rotate squads. It turns out Oak Park's groups use different rotations.

A bit of Chinese fire drill at the end of the first stages.

The good news is that we've decided to go ahead with future matches.

Our next will be at 9am CDT, Sunday, August 29th, 2010, when once again we expect to feature five stages, four field courses and a classifier for about 120 rounds.

There's hope of adding another field course as ongoing bay construction may well give us more bays to work with by the end of summer. This would also allow us some more freedom to schedule more matches without running afoul of member open shooting at this busy club.

Should any of our setup help or participants happen to be tuned to this channel, I'd like to thank you for your support.

Here's our webpageon the club's site.

Edited June 2, 2010 by Cherryriver

[Cherryriver]

Just thought I'd roll this one in case anyone's in the Chicago area next weekend for our second ICORE match 9am CDT, Sunday, August 29th, 2010 at the beautiful Oak Park Sportsmens Club in Plainfield, IL. It's just off I-55 at the Rte. 126 exit.

Details at the site: www.opsc.ws

[Tom E]

our second ICORE match 9am CDT, Sunday, August 29th, 2010

And a nice match it was.

[L.Lake]

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