2005 Area 6 Championship

[XRe]

I don't think it's the first time - I recall Todd doing it at least once in "The Year of Domination" (1997).

[ima45dv8]

Also a tall man's match, I think there was one low-port and a couple slight-crouch-type of ports in the whole match. Also very little sprinting required, which I'm sure many ppl appreciated.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[eric nielsen]

I smiled too. Apparently people in Georgia noticed that in real houses, the windows usually top out somewhere higher than 5'5". Also they noticed that house-clearing primarily involves doorways. Thanks for clueing in to that.

[TDean]

Well done Shannon!!!

That's awesome! :)

[robopup]

Sorry, I was one of the B.E'er that didn't id my self. I was one of the RO's on stage 1. (the older, larger one.) It was a great match, and Cindy did a teriffic job as always. Bill wasn't too bad either.

[SmittyFL]

Thanks for the kind words.

Wow, I don't really know what to say, except "what the ..... just happened"

I knew I had a pretty decent match going. The only stages I had problems on were the speed shoots. One of these days I'll learn how to reload. But I also knew those were low point stages, so they couldn't hurt me too bad. But I certainly didn't expect to win.

I figured top 5 and would be very happy with a 3rd. But Roger's right, when I heard them call 5th, 4th, 3rd, I got more and more excited. But when they called TT 1st GM, I suddenly got confused. I knew Phil, Estuardo, and Emanuel were still out there. Emanuel told me he had a horrible match, but you never know with shooters, they always say that. Part of me was thinking "Damn, I thought I shot pretty well, and I didn't even place" and the other part of me was thinking "No F'in way!"

So, needless to say, I'm happy. It's nice to see all the practice pay off, plus gives incentive to stay at it. I think when you get to a certain level the increments of improvement are so small, it's hard to see them.

As for the match, I thought it was good. The schedule worked awesome, hardly no down time. The stages were a nice mix of field course and speed shoots (even though they aren't my favorite). Thanks to all the staff, and the be'ers were great, Roger, Hopp, John, Brian, Grrl, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Got to meet DB Chaffin, super nice guy and congrats on a great finish for him as well as many other BE'ers. Also thanks to Max, on top of having the perfect match, he came up to me afterwards with some nice and encouraging words. A class act all around.

I'm sure I'll have more comments after I digest it a bit more.

Thanks again, I've gotten a lot of great help from this forum.

[Flexmoney]

All I can say is....

That's HOT!!!

.

[folsoml]

Being new to the sport, I was kind of caught off guard by the "no scouting stages" rule. I know it's been around a while, but this was the 1st match I saw it enforced. As a result, my squad of 14 people got really crowded in the small shooting areas like See Rock City II (which, by the way, I brought home a battle scar from the low port). I wasn't able to formulate a really good plan for several of the stages and had to just wing it. Came away all right though, 3rd C class Limited 10. Bring home some hardware is always good for the Sheriff, who was paying the bills to send us.

Hey Nemo, Didn't both of your boys also win something at the shooter raffle?

[Jon Merricks]

I too am not going to start the post on negatives - but someone will need to! Really good discussion points off of this one issue.

I bet Jon will start it

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm still cooling my jets.

I would like to give a big thanks to all the hard working RO's and stage designers. This had the potential to be one of the best matches of the year,,,but.

[proff]

What a great match! Congratulations to all the winners. Special thanks to all of you who encouraged, coached, tolerated, and otherwise showed your kindness to my son Teepy. At nine years old I think he was the youngest shooter. It was quite an experience for both of us. He cranked out a remarkable 45% on stage 1. Squad 2, you guys and gals are the greatest, best talent I've ever squaded with.

If any of you want a squad picture send me and email.

Terry

[DaBlaster]

Nice Job Shannon, and to all the other winners!!

"The first area win is the Best!!!!!!" words just can't quite describe it!!!

Congrats,

[DaBlaster]

BTW,

Thanks to all of the Crew for working, and allowing us to sit around and not paste,

that was awesome!!!!

[TDean]

"Damn, I thought I shot pretty well, and I didn't even place" and the other part of me was thinking "No F'in way!"

-Smitty

That's awesome!

You've inspired this struggling GM, thanks.

[Carmoney]

Nemo and Proff: Great hearing about those junior shooters of yours! It's a really cool experience being an "IPSC Dad"!

Mike

P.S. Looks like somebody used Photoshop to show us what Hopalong would look like if he ever cut the hair and shaved off the long ZZ-Top-style beard.....

[Turtle]

Great match. A big "thank you" to all who helped to make it happen.

Great job Smitty, congrats!

[mhearn]

Cindy

Congratulations to you and all the crew.

Great match. I would not have thought it possible to run that many shooters, do it basically on schedule, and with only a few minor glitches.

Really impressive. Great stages, great variety, and the toughest competition I've ever seen. Their seemed to be more GMs than any other class. Ouch.

Thanks for all the hard work. I was happy to help with my small part (R.O.ing on Friday at the Dragon). And yes, I did DQ the Area 6 director. He was having such a good match someone had to do it.

MHearn

[Mike Dame]

I had a blast at this match, and to think I almost didn't go .

The stages were great, and it blew my mind that most stages the RO's told us they would handle the patching and resetting.

I had an interesting little conversation with SingleStack on his stage as I was loading my gun.

SS- " Are you Mike Dame?"

"Yeppers"

SS- "Single Stack"

I replied "no, it's an STI" I had the very noticable team shirt on so I was a little confussed untill he said he was SingleStack. Even then it took me a few seconds to clue in.

Thanks to everyone who made this match happen and congrats to all the champs. I second Jakes comment on Max's preformance, Eric's going to have one hell of a battle in Equador this summer.

[SmittyFL]

Thanks Manny, we'll have to go at it with wheel guns someday.

Speaking of wheel guns, congrats to Cliff Walsh, Area 6 Champion. 727 reprezenten

I'm sorry you didn't win a gun Cliff. I know that must be a shock to you, but it's OK. Trust me, most people don't win guns at every match they go to.

Thanks again for everybody's comments. It means a lot.

[Lee Dimaculangan]

awesome match!

congrats to max - wow... every stage... reminds me of the double tap champs, , but this time @ an area level match, - simply amazing

smitty and the rest of the winners, congrats!

it was nice to finally meet some of you BE-ers again, although I think i missed shooter grrl and some others- lookin forward to seeing you guys again at Area 4!

oh... and as for my shooting? hahaha.. yeah

lets just say ill be practicing my butt off for area 4

[Jack Suber]

Nelson,

Congrats to you and especially to Francisco and Nelson Jr. I know you are very proud of them and I am pleased to have them as fellow members of the LXG. I hate we couldn't shoot together. Next year, hopefully John will be with us and we can all shoot together. That would be great. Sorry we couldn't visit longer. Take care, Hermano.

Jack

Shannon,

Congrats to you.

Shooter Girl,

I enjoyed shooting with you and David. I hope we can do that again, sometime.

Cindy, thanks for all of your hard work.

Also, a special thanks to all of the ROs who busted their butts working in the heat. All really appreciate all of you who make this sport possible. Take care.

[Nemo]

Folsoml, thanx for the heads up... Will check with Cindy ASAP.

Mike "Sam's Dad" Carmoney, we'll have to officially start the IPSC-PPA (Proud Parents Association). It's definitely great! BTW, if I had the photoshop know-how to shave Hops face, I'd add some hair to my head...

Jack, it was a bummer that we couldn't squad together and that the schedules didn't permit the mandatory brewsky. Lets coordinate the next one better... GA State, maybe? Look forward to have John join the LXG. Did you see Teepy shooting? He's 9 and already has an Area 6 under his belt. C'mon the earlier the better!

Did I win the Bedell?

[carinab]

The stages were great and I had a blast shooting on a squad of 5 Canadians, 4 Jamaicans, and 4 Americans. Amazing how the love of shooting has no accent and no borders.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I concur on this one...the stages were great and I had canadians and a jamaican on my squad too...Pretty cool to have that international flavor! And chrono man gets my thanks for not sending me to minorville...although I was close. Anyone want to buy an Oehler?!

[ima45dv8]

I’m not sure where to post this since we have two threads discussing the decision to have the Area 6 stages closed. I guess this thread will have to do.

I've struggled with the idea of whether or not to post anything at all on this since I had a lot of sweat-equity tied up in this event, and my viewpoint might rightfully be biased. Mostly I wanted to make sure I had time to absorb all the compliments and criticisms with equal consideration.

First off, I want to thank Cindy Noyes for her work as Match Director, and I will tell you what I said to her last night and again today – I am in total awe of what she pulled together. We worked many hours planning this match, and the To-Do list was staggering. Of course she’s very quick to say she couldn’t have done it without all the help she had, but that can’t diminish the mind-boggling organizational talent which she provided.

We’ve received many kudos on the stages and the amenities of the match. I’m proud of that since I designed 3 of the stages and was involved in setting up and/or tweaking 5 or 6 more. There were 3 speed-shoots, 1 “carnival” speed-shoot that included 2 Texas Stars, 1 classifier stage and 7 field courses. It seemed to be a pretty good mix and was hopefully seen as a shooting contest and not a “track meet with guns”. That was the intent, anyway.

Caspian28r (another Eric!) mentioned the “tall-guy friendly” nature of the stages. I’m 6’2”, 295 lbs., so I can be blamed for that.

Sadly, it seems that what was otherwise an overwhelming successful event is now marred by the decision to close the ranges outside of the actual match. That’s a shame because people tend to remember the bad things, regardless of girth or weight, and forget the good things which may have been so much larger.

I mentioned Intent before. Please understand this – the decision to close the stages was in no way intended to hurt anyone’s performance or detract from anyone’s enjoyment of the match. The intent was to provide as fair an opportunity to view the stages as possible, for the greatest number of shooters possible. I know some folks made the effort to be there early, but many more folks just couldn’t swing it.

As a lesson learned, any intent to close the stages at future South River events will publicized better in the future. It was in fact publicized on this very forum by Bill Noyes when he posted a link to the electronic version of the match booklet (post #1 in the thread announcing the Area 6 match). It now seems apparent that a lot of people missed that. In that link to the match booklet were the specifics of when competitors could inspect the stages, and when the stages would be closed (page 6, “Inspection” and page 7, “Time To Shoot”). I don’t know if the same decision will be made for future South River events, but if it is, it will be widely known. Maybe a mention on the entry form(?).

I’d also like to comment on the idea that match staff have an advantage of seeing the stages prior to the match. We worked long days Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of match week. Speaking strictly for myself, I was dog-assed exhausted when I showed up to shoot on Friday, and my match performance suffered a great deal because of it. Such is life.

I decided not to CRO a stage because I knew my feet wouldn’t survive the week I had just put in and they wouldn’t see me through to the end of the day on Sunday. If I had worked a stage and bailed out to rest, it would have opened the door to a complaint that the stage was not administered consistently throughout the match, and would have provided someone the opportunity to have a stage thrown out of the match. I regretted this necessity because I like meeting shooters and take pride in running a stage with good ROs, of which we had many.

A big highlight for me was when Rhino showed up and found me on Thursday. We’ve known each other for several years through various on-line forums, but this was our first chance to meet face-to-face. We had a great visit and I gave him the 5-cent tour of the facility. He also helped me certify that the golf carts provided for the match could haul some serious weight up a long hill without stalling. And Yes, since I was working on set up while we visited, I kept him off the stages and didn't let him walk through them.

Then I got to meet Nelson and the League Of Extraordinary Young Gentlemen, and Sam Keene (HOPALONG). Sam’s very cool, y’all! Kathy (Shooter Grrl) and her husband, the Gentle Giant, David were there too, and he didn’t stuff my head down my shirt for getting all those pick-me-up hugs from his lovely wife. I also had a chance to talk with Phil S., Lee D,. Jack Suber, Manny, Folsoml, Steve Moneypenny (when he came into Stats), Sterling (GMW2B), and many others. What great people!

I know it sounds corny, but I left richer than when I arrived.

Apologies for the long post. We really did mean to put on a good show.

…Mark Ramsey

[dajarrel]

Apologies for the long post. We really did mean to put on a good show.

…Mark Ramsey

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ahhh, but you did put on a really good show.

Thanks to all the RO's and Cindy for all their efforts. My shooting was sub-par but the event was excellent. And I won the a Beretta 92 from the match sponsor (Beretta) in a raffle as well.

I really enjoyed meeting the BE'er. Some for the first time and renewed aquaintances for others.

It was a really great match.

dj

[Still Praying]

Mark

I have not seen the threads you are talking about, but I will look for them. The match was a GREAT success. The people were GREAT, the stages were GREAT, the RO'S were GREAT, but their was something missing. I think it helps a shooter to relax more and concentrate on his/her game if they can see the stage before they shoot it.

I don't know about the other shooters, but I need more than 5 min to see a stage with 14 IPSC & 2 steel targets that need to be shot from 13 different positions while trippppping over 11 other shooters at the same time that I'm trying to work it out.

Maybe I'm just slow like that, but thats me. I had 2 FTE's one on 5 and one on 6 because of this. They were great stages and it's a shame I did not enjoy them because of this.

I had a new shooter with me and he helped me RO friday (Star Struck). He has only shot 2 matches and not yet a member of USPSA and did not shoot the match. Even he said that their wasn't enough time to look over some of the stages. In fact he brought it up.

I know some people my say they could not get there in time to see the stages before the match starts and some will say tough luck and the debate goes on and on. The truth is I didn't enjoy this one as much as the other 11 major matches I've shot and I don't think I will shoot another closed range major match with that many shooters on one squad.

Like you I hope that the Area 6 2005 is not remembered for the ONE fault it had, but I do hope future major matches learn from this mistake and I hope I don't catch #*!! this weekend when I go back to SRGC (for our monthly match) for posting this.

SRGC DID PUT ON A GOOD SHOW. Make no mistake about it. You can please some of the shooters some of the time, but you can't please all of the shooters all of the time.

PS. I never did find the shoot off. Oh well you guys had your hands full. Like I said, I'll be there is weekend.