Steel Challenge Update

[MBaneACP]

Unofficially, it looks like Todd J. took Limited, thanks to a honest-to-goodness stunning performance on Five To Go. He had a bad morning and figured he was out of it, but chipped his way back up after TGO and Jerry M. couldn't decisively put one or the other away. Todd's VERY UNOFFICIAL time was just under 81 seconds.

Big surprise was Phil Strader, shooting in his first SC and NOT in the Super Squad, who came within an hairsbreath of upsetting the Big Dogs.

Michael B

[eerw]

thanks for the update.

please keep it coming..

any photos or vid you can share???

[gmshtr]

Well, we don't know where to find out about the official results, but according to Rob's finger and toes adding, he was 2nd with 83.00 and I came in at 83.02. Guess I should've tried not to hose that last stage for the win! Oh well, 3rd sucks just as bad as 2nd. Congrats to Todd for a great match. Open tomorrow. Should be interesting.

Phil

[Turtle]

he was 2nd with 83.00 and I came in at 83.02.

...awesome.

[GuildSF4]

according to Rob's finger and toes adding, he was 2nd with 83.00 and I came in at 83.02. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Really good shooting dude!

[shred]

That's pretty much where the unofficial-official printed results for Limited come in at-- Todd with an 80, Rob with an 83 and Phil just a hair behind.

Met BE today at the range on his surprise-walkabout-visit, saw Erik W trying to recover from some sort of unspecified Mexican malady, James trying to avoid carrying Erik's bag (well, trying to avoid Erik entirely) and ended up with an 88.3-something. My goal was 'under 88', but I'll take it, especially after considerable ugliness on Showdown, and needing to keep serveral extra shots on Roundabout and Pendulum. When I left the range I was winning Open, since the SS scores hadn't all been shot yet , but it'll probably wind up in the 20's.

Edited September 17, 2005 by shred

[diehli]

That's pretty much where the unofficial-official printed results for Limited come in at-- Todd with an 80, Rob with an 83 and Phil just a hair behind. 

Met BE today at the range on his surprise-walkabout-visit, saw EricW trying to recover from some sort of unspecified Mexican malady, James trying to avoid carrying Eric's bag (well, trying to avoid Eric entirely)  and ended up with an 88.3-something.  My goal was 'under 88', but I'll take it, especially after considerable ugliness on Showdown, and needing to keep serveral extra shots on Roundabout and Pendulum.  When I left the range I was winning Open, since the SS scores hadn't all been shot yet , but it'll probably wind up in the 20's.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Methinks you mean Erik W., not EricW.

[shred]

Yeah, yeah.. the miracle of the edit button rides again.

[warpspeed]

Unnofficially, it looks like Max M. won the open.

Rumor has it that it was close heading into Speed Option and Max pulled it out.

Edited September 18, 2005 by warpspeed

[rtr]

What about the japanase guy, Sakai IIRC.

[Guy Neill]

I understand (unofficially) that Sakai DQ'ed (if he's the one that won last year. Also, I was told that Max won.

Guy

[shred]

Early word is Max with a 73.5 then Doug and JJ

[TRNinTX]

We talked to JJ in the hotel lobby last night. He said he was leading going into Speed Option and had the chance for the $20K if he shot it in the 10's, so he went for it. He didn't seem to have any regrets at the time.

[benos]

Early word is Max with a 73.5  then Doug and JJ

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's true. It was quite the dramatic finish. Going into the Speed OP, JJ actually had a chance at the 25 thousand big ones. But it wasn't in the cards for him, on that day, at the Steel Challenge, in the year 2005. After JJ, Doug finished up real tough on the SO putting him in the lead ahead of JJ, which left only Max with a chance to beat Doug for the match win. Coming into it, Max needed to average 3.05 or better to take the title from Doug. He pulled if off - impressively - digging in on every run. It was a terrific finish - really fun to watch. Congratulations to Max!!! And Doug and JJ! I saw some nice, crisp shooting out of all of them.

be

[RaySolomon]

Early word is Max with a 73.5  then Doug and JJ

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's true. It was quite the dramatic finish. Going into the Speed OP, JJ actually had a chance at the 25 thousand big ones. But it wasn't in the cards for him, on that day, at the Steel Challenge, in the year 2005. After JJ, Doug finished up real tough on the SO putting him in the lead ahead of JJ, which left only Max with a chance to beat Doug for the match win. Coming into it, Max needed to average 3.05 or better to take the title from Doug. He pulled if off - impressively - digging in on every run. It was a terrific finish - really fun to watch. Congratulations to Max!!! And Doug and JJ! I saw some nice, crisp shooting out of all of them.

be

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Anyone know how Matt McLearn did? I watched him practice here at Rio Salado.

[rtr]

I understand (unofficially) that Sakai DQ'ed

Man that sucks, anybody know what happened?

From watching the SC on TV it seems there isn't too much movement, like a regular IPSC match, are there usually that many DQs?

[jkushner1]

Todd:

Any word on Angus' performance - where did he end up. Does he shoot iron sight or his champ at steel events. Just got my new TS .40 from Angus for Limited to compliment my ST IPSC. Angus put on a comp hammer, an alloy trogger, although sweet, the compositie trigger always flexed a little too much for me and a fiber optic front sight. CZ's OFM new fixed rear is the Sh#%t. (I'm done for a while - I have two AH built 85 Combats for production and now the two ST/TS's for limited - I dont compete in open).

Thanks,

Jon

[Guy Neill]

"I understand (unofficially) that Sakai DQ'ed"

I was told he was a little too quick and put one in the ground.

Guy

[Rikarin]

I had a great fun at the SC.

First of all, thanks for Super Squad for lettming me watch you guys near by and I felt quite a honor to share diner with top shooters. It was nice to meet Shred and other forum members, too.

Picture below is my treasure... Julie is so feminine and beatiful and impossible to figure she is the bad-ass shooter! I was like teenager with crash on her

I was told he was a little too quick and put one in the ground.

Yeah, since its "my guy" - thats what Brian call him - I feel so bad for him! It happend in front of my eyes and I couldn't believe it. Supposedly he was winning all the stages and then, for some reason, he fired a premature shot into the ground, like 3 feet away from himself.

Afterwards, he was so bummed. So bummed he was, Robbie was even saying "we were on suicide watch here".

I think not firing live-gun until couple of weeks beforehand would be the disadvantege in this way, both about safety and not able to handle this kind of accident well.

I couldn't get to talk with him much and hope he comes back next year. I have a great respect for him shooting a match in forign land with limitted ability to speak English AND not even able to handle live gun till couple of weeks before the match.

Oh, and yes, I'm wearing women's tight fit Makumozo T shirts wich I made from regular T-shirts. Sorry, not for sale :D

[zhunter]

Awesome post Rikarin

[Matt Cheely]

Yeah!

Now I want to go next year...

[driver8M3]

Big surprise was Phil Strader, shooting in his first SC and NOT in the Super Squad, who came within an hairsbreath of upsetting the Big Dogs.

not only was this phils 1st time at the match, we dont even have many SC-like matches in our area for him to practice. i know he shot the NJ SC match a couple of years ago, but that might have been the only other SC-format match he's ever shot. and now to get 3rd place, just .02 seconds behind rob...that's awesome. way to go phil!

[MBaneACP]

Sorry I've been hither and yon on the SC...was a tough few "days at the office" for us getting exactly the video we wanted.

All in all, easily the most dramatic SC I've ever seen. The extra $20K did exactly what we expected it to do — jacked up the pressure on the Super Squad. I think Sakai was on a track to walk away with the match and the money when he DQ'ed. According to our pencils, he's toppled the world record on the stages he'd shot, and he was shooting like machine. The DQ was, of course, the classic speed/pressure DQ...knock safety off 'way too early; finger on the trigger; bang.

Sakai's DQ seemed to throw everyone's match strategies up in the air...Todd J. said following Sakai was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, because he couldn't get "keep finger off trigger!" out of his head. J.J. stepped up and smoked through Outer Limits...absolutely amazing, with one run after the other besting his own world record speeds.

Going into the last stage, Speed Option, it was J.J.'s match to lose. Frankly, both me and Paul Erhardt from SIGARMS thought he had the match and the money (our unofficial running tallies — which we were EXTREMELY careful to keep from the competitors as part of our deal with the SC! — showed that J.J. needed to run an average of 2.92 seconds for three runs to take the match and money...since he'd been running 2.3s in practice, we thought all he had to do was cruise). Speed Option has always been J.J.'S nemesis, and it proved to be that again on Saturday. J.J. stepped up and couldn't BUY a decent run.

Doug Koenig had two mediocre runs on Speed Option...that's mediocre for HIM; if I had two runs like that I'd get down on my hands and knees and weep for joy...which opened the door for Max. RE: Doug, it seemed to Mike Fichman, Mike Dalton and I that Doug was never going for the bucks, but was running a strategy to win the match (I haven't talked to Doug on this, so it's pure speculation).

We'd been running the numbers all day, and we knew that Max, Mike Voigt and Todd Jarrett were hanging just below J.J, and Doug, with less than a second separating the chase group from the leaders. Max especially was shooting no-holds-barred wide open; he'd had a couple of runs that matched K.C.'s single runs, which was amazing because K.C., clearly out of the running, was swinging for the wall for the stage money.

When Max stepped up on Speed Option, he had NO IDEA how much the balance had shifted (we were frantically rearranging cameras behind his back!). He shot like a machine. Whhen he came off the line, Todd stepped forward to congratulate him, and Max looked thunderstruck. He kept saying, "I won?"

Hell of a finish!

We really wanted to give away the money! I spoke with Outdoor Channel executives Sunday night, and while we'll need to talk about iit in the light of day, the overall feeling was that we'll not only let the money ride, but see what we can do about kicking it up a couple of notches.

I'm also going to lobby for a 1 hour (or more) video to sell, with proceeds going to prize money. We busted our butts on the video, and I'd love to give you guys a chance to see more than we can televise.

THANK YOU TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SUPER SQUAD, WHO PUT UP WITH A HUGE LEVEL OF INTRUSION FROM OUR CREWS!!!

Thanks to TGO for making faces behind my back on the intro...watch for it at the end of Episode 2!!!!

Thanks to Mike and Mike for working with us to create the best teevee show on a shooting competition EVER!

Thanks to Lisa Farrell for being our production slave as soon as she finished shooting.

Thanks to Mickey Fowler, the Mikes, TGO, Mike Voigt and Todd Jarrett for giving us an amazing amount of on-camera perspective on the match and the stages.

You'll be seeing the SG in February on The Outdoor Channel. I'll also try to have a hi-def version running at the booth at the SHOT Show.

We've also agreed to film an episode with Max, as is TOTALLY appropriate!

Michael B.

PS: GREAT to see and talk to BE! We're working on scheduling the SHOOTING GALLERY interview with BE in Arizona after the first of the year.

PPS: Phil Strader was being modest...he chose to shoot for the Limited win rather than a safe second place on that last stage Friday...it took nerve and grace...Phil, you da man! We'll be filming with Phil, too!

Edited September 19, 2005 by MBaneACP

[shred]

FYI, hopefully legible photos of the prize-final results are on my site (prize-final results have second-entries ***-ed out instead of number placements)

http://www.shred2.net/~shred/gallery/SC2005 (try page 3, -- click the thumbs, then click the images again if they're too small)

[Carmoney]

I'm also going to lobby for a 1 hour (or more) video to sell, with proceeds going to prize money. We busted our butts on the video, and I'd love to give you guys a chance to see more than we can televise.

This was promised last year......did the 2004 SC video ever get made?