Travelling to Cameo tips

[motosapiens]

Just now, Dirty_J said:

Frostproof is out of the way? The range is rural.. that much is true.. 

 

There are at least 3 international airports within 2 hours of the range. Lol

sounds like you are just biased towards your part of the country. that makes sense. you live there.

for those of who live out west, florida in general and frostproof in particular is BFE. Hard and expensive to get to, nowhere to stay anywhere close to the range, not nearly enough parking, horrible humidity, sun guaranteed to be in your eyes, alligators and 'florida man'.

 

OTOH, st george or cameo is an easy drive, without humidity or disgusting creatures, and with other interesting things to do nearby.

[Dirty_J]

35 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

sounds like you are just biased towards your part of the country. that makes sense. you live there.

for those of who live out west, florida in general and frostproof in particular is BFE. Hard and expensive to get to, nowhere to stay anywhere close to the range, not nearly enough parking, horrible humidity, sun guaranteed to be in your eyes, alligators and 'florida man'.

 

OTOH, st george or cameo is an easy drive, without humidity or disgusting creatures, and with other interesting things to do nearby.

Frostproof is a 10+ hour drive for me... so not really "my part" of the country. With 3 airports... it's not really all that expensive. You have your choice of ANY major airline of choice... TPA... MCO... PBI. So you can actually shop for flights... versus being shoehorned in to one airport... and 1-2 airlines (with **** connections). 

 

There are 2 cities within 40mins of that range... not to mention central florida has more rentals/hotels per square mile than anywhere else in the country! 

 

As for the temps.... Nats should end the year... not be in May or June... and Florida weather is fantastic at the end of October/early November. 

 

SUPS would be a fine choice by me... being under 2.5hrs from Vegas. 

 

I don't care where the match is honestly... BUT the top issues to select the range would be GUN LAWS, # of bays and airport access. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Dirty_J

[Darqusoull13]

16 hours ago, shred said:

That's what I heard as well. 

 

Long ago... like dozens of years ago, USPSA said Nationals only broke even if they were full up.

 

I think the 2-gun thing was driven by a couple of people in the org that really wanted it and hoped it would grow, but it doesn't seem to have legs.

 

Travelling to Cameo was about as easy as it gets. You fly into Grand Junction, get an inexpensive hotel, and 15 minutes later you're at the range. It might not be centrally located for folks that drive which I would really prefer. But once you do get there everything is extremely close to the range facility itself. 

I disagree with 2 Gun not having a very broad appeal. The first year the match had 224 folks attend. In my opinion it was the best match I shot that year, by far. The format is extremely fun and way easier for folks to get into as a Multigun format. Not to mention nobody actually enjoys the shotgun portion of Multigun. 

2022 obviously suffered from internet stuff but even before that the folks that normally would drive the 10-11 hr trip maximum decided the 17+ hours was simply too far. 

When locations were announced, folks also questioned the location due to the questions around state law. What nobody knew, except folks that had been there previously for matches, was that Cameo itself was phenomenally accommodating. The month prior there were apparently full auto helicopter demos with drum mags at another event. 

2 Gun Nats in 2021, and now in 2022, was my favorite match of the year. I think with the right support the match could easily pull 300 entries next year. 

[Dirty_J]

4 minutes ago, Darqusoull13 said:

Travelling to Cameo was about as easy as it gets. You fly into Grand Junction, get an inexpensive hotel, and 15 minutes later you're at the range. It might not be centrally located for folks that drive which I would really prefer. But once you do get there everything is extremely close to the range facility itself. 

I disagree with 2 Gun not having a very broad appeal. The first year the match had 224 folks attend. In my opinion it was the best match I shot that year, by far. The format is extremely fun and way easier for folks to get into as a Multigun format. Not to mention nobody actually enjoys the shotgun portion of Multigun. 

2022 obviously suffered from internet stuff but even before that the folks that normally would drive the 10-11 hr trip maximum decided the 17+ hours was simply too far. 

When locations were announced, folks also questioned the location due to the questions around state law. What nobody knew, except folks that had been there previously for matches, was that Cameo itself was phenomenally accommodating. The month prior there were apparently full auto helicopter demos with drum mags at another event. 

2 Gun Nats in 2021, and now in 2022, was my favorite match of the year. I think with the right support the match could easily pull 300 entries next year. 

Being from Texas... and flying American or United... Cameo is easy to get to. If those aren't your home airlines... it's not so easy

[motosapiens]

44 minutes ago, Dirty_J said:

Frostproof is a 10+ hour drive for me... so not really "my part" of the country.

haha, you easterners, with your crazy ideas.

 

10+ hours is entirely 'your part of the country' by our standards. 

[BritinUSA]

1 hour ago, motosapiens said:

i think members who pay dues and activity fees should have a say, regardless. Not so sure about people who don't even shoot USPSA....

So just to clarify; I’ve been a member of USPSA for 24 years and have spent many thousands of dollars promoting the sport, but because I have not renewed my membership I am no longer allowed to express an opinion ?

[ima45dv8]

1 hour ago, Dirty_J said:

Nats should end the year... not be in May or June... and Florida weather is fantastic at the end of October/early November

Weather is more tolerable that time of year, for sure. But the hours of daylight lost by a change like that would make hosting any major very difficult, and especially so for a Nationals event.

[ima45dv8]

2 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

but because I have not renewed my membership I am no longer allowed to express an opinion ?

Here you can. There will be those who disagree with that, and they're allowed to do that, within our forum guidelines. In particular:

 

Please be polite. Or if not polite, at least respectful.
No bickering. Regardless of the subject matter.
Antagonistic, offensive, or quarrelsome tones are not acceptable.

[Dirty_J]

10 minutes ago, ima45dv8 said:

Weather is more tolerable that time of year, for sure. But the hours of daylight lost by a change like that would make hosting any major very difficult, and especially so for a Nationals event.

A quick check of the almanac says that's not all that much of an issue. Being further south is yet again an advantage for a match later in the season. 

 

Cameo gets 11hr 14mins of daylight on Oct 15th. (one of the days of competition for 4 Div Nats)

 

Frostproof (for example) gets 11hr 8mins of daylight even a full 2 weeks later on Nov. 1st.

 

It's a non-issue, as long as it occurs before the time change in early November. Still a similar amount of daylight... but the match would have to start (and end) an hour earlier to have the same amount of daylight. 

[motosapiens]

22 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

So just to clarify; I’ve been a member of USPSA for 24 years and have spent many thousands of dollars promoting the sport, but because I have not renewed my membership I am no longer allowed to express an opinion ?

you're certainly allowed to express an opinion, but I wouldn't expect the organization to care much about it. 

 

I have opinions about 3-gun, but because I don't shoot it, no one really cares.

[ima45dv8]

Jason, I understand the number of hours of daylight is pretty much the same for both locations. I was speaking of the hours lost by moving a match to October from the summer months (at either location). There's almost a 3 hour difference between those seasons.

[Dirty_J]

2 minutes ago, ima45dv8 said:

Jason, I understand the number of hours of daylight is pretty much the same for both locations. I was speaking of the hours lost by moving a match to October from the summer months (at either location). There's almost a 3 hour difference between those seasons.

My perspective is focused completely on the 4 division Nationals.. which is already planned for mid-October at Cameo. 

[Fishbreath]

2 hours ago, Dirty_J said:

They’re still taking whatever warm bodies they can get for officiating

 

I applied to work Classic Nationals, and they turned me down because they didn't need entry-level ROs with two majors on their work records.

 

If Classic Nationals can afford to be choosy, I suspect 4-division Nationals isn't going to be hurting for staff either.

[Dirty_J]

5 minutes ago, Fishbreath said:

 

I applied to work Classic Nationals, and they turned me down because they didn't need entry-level ROs with two majors on their work records.

 

If Classic Nationals can afford to be choosy, I suspect 4-division Nationals isn't going to be hurting for staff either.

Yep. CO Nats is the same way... slap full of D class and Unclassified retiree RO's. I'm wait-listed for that match... also only have 2 majors on my record... but both as CRO.. and I guess they don't know what to do with a GM RO anyway. 

 

Point being... still warm bodies. 

[motosapiens]

Just now, Fishbreath said:

 

I applied to work Classic Nationals, and they turned me down because they didn't need entry-level ROs with two majors on their work records.

 

If Classic Nationals can afford to be choosy, I suspect 4-division Nationals isn't going to be hurting for staff either.

in my opinion, they have definitely been more choosy the last few years. If you sign up early, they still like a certain number of entry-level RO's because that's the best way to make them into good, experienced, customer-oriented RO's.

 

Since they started running a real staff match with comped entry for the RO's, they are attracting a younger and more competitive workforce, with some really good RO's who understand how to treat shooters (because they are still serious shooters), and how to run a fair and fun and efficient stage.  I worked a double-bay at classic nats, and both CRO's were M-class competitors with a good customer-service attitude. All the folks on my staff squad were top-notch as well.

[Dirty_J]

2 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

in my opinion, they have definitely been more choosy the last few years. If you sign up early, they still like a certain number of entry-level RO's because that's the best way to make them into good, experienced, customer-oriented RO's.

 

Since they started running a real staff match with comped entry for the RO's, they are attracting a younger and more competitive workforce, with some really good RO's who understand how to treat shooters (because they are still serious shooters), and how to run a fair and fun and efficient stage.  I worked a double-bay at classic nats, and both CRO's were M-class competitors with a good customer-service attitude. All the folks on my staff squad were top-notch as well.

Glad to hear that was a case at Classic this year. Was not my experience at PCC/CO there last year! 

[motosapiens]

1 minute ago, Dirty_J said:

Yep. CO Nats is the same way... slap full of D class and Unclassified retiree RO's. I'm wait-listed for that match... also only have 2 majors on my record... but both as CRO.. and I guess they don't know what to do with a GM RO anyway. 

 

Point being... still warm bodies. 

I disagree with your statement. Maybe that was true several years ago, but I have seen real change in that area. FWIW, one of the RM's at classic nats is an open GM. I don't know how many other M's there were, but I can think of 6 just off the top of my head.

[motosapiens]

4 minutes ago, Dirty_J said:

Glad to hear that was a case at Classic this year. Was not my experience at PCC/CO there last year! 

to be fair, it's possible that I'm nicer than you, so people are just nicer to me in return...... 

 

Since I've worked the last few nationals I've shot (and therefore only interacted with a subset of the RO's), i'm basing my opinion somewhat on race gun nats at frostproof in 2020. That's the most recent national I've shot as a pure consumer, and except for being in BFE and hard to get to and the humidity, it was very well run, and I found the staff to be extremely professional and courteous.

Edited June 16, 2022 by motosapiens

[Dirty_J]

52 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

I disagree with your statement. Maybe that was true several years ago, but I have seen real change in that area. FWIW, one of the RM's at classic nats is an open GM. I don't know how many other M's there were, but I can think of 6 just off the top of my head.

Kyle Stephens is the exception. Not the rule! 

[BritinUSA]

1 hour ago, ima45dv8 said:

Jason, I understand the number of hours of daylight is pretty much the same for both locations. I was speaking of the hours lost by moving a match to October from the summer months (at either location). There's almost a 3 hour difference between those seasons.

I think there is a need to be cautious when it comes to daylight hours. I remember when Nationals was at Desert Sportsman one October. When the sun dipped behind the mountains some of the berms were in near darkness, even though the sunset hours for the state were much later.

[Dirty_J]

3 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

I think there is a need to be cautious when it comes to daylight hours. I remember when Nationals was at Desert Sportsman one October. When the sun dipped behind the mountains some of the berms were in near darkness, even though the sunset hours for the state were much later.

Haha. Very much NOT a Florida problem.  

[motosapiens]

11 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

I think there is a need to be cautious when it comes to daylight hours. I remember when Nationals was at Desert Sportsman one October. When the sun dipped behind the mountains some of the berms were in near darkness, even though the sunset hours for the state were much later.

I somewhat agree with you. limited daylight is fine unless the match is disorganized and runs way behind. There were a couple stages (2 stages in one bay IIRC, as always) that were real backup problems in vegas in 2012. If there's one critique I have about recent nationals, it's that they still try to fit too much into 2-stage bays. It can work if you have 2 RO crews that are exceptional and understand the mission, but it still leaves you less margin for error. And you can pretty well guarantee that *something* is going to happen. Every calibration or scoring dispute shuts down both stages.

[ima45dv8]

Jason,

 

I can only tell you that the average of staff at the Nationals (of any flavor) has been a point of criticism by shooters for at least 22 years that I know of...

 

Please consider that there's a lot of folks who may have aged beyond their physical abilities to contribute as a contending competitor, but who still actively support the sport they love in a meaningful way -- as a match official. Their feet may have slowed a bit but that doesn't mean their minds aren't still quick (yeah, some have dropped off, but that's a different topic). Your experience level as an RO/CRO isn't dependant on footspeed. 

===================

 

As for time differences between Summer and Fall/Winter, those 3 hours would have been a blessing when I was RM at the first GA State 3Gun match at So. River. It was a pretty big event with a lot of heavy hitters.

 

I had 2 pickups pull up into the mouth of the last active bay and turn on their hi-beams, while I stood behind the last 4 competitors on the starting gallows platform and shined 2 hi-zoot "Fighting" lights on their targets. (Would that be RO Interference today?  )

 

We got through it and laughed about it, but from a match management standpoint that extra daylight is irreplaceable. 

 

[shred]

5 hours ago, Dirty_J said:

A quick check of the almanac says that's not all that much of an issue. Being further south is yet again an advantage for a match later in the season. 

 

Cameo gets 11hr 14mins of daylight on Oct 15th. (one of the days of competition for 4 Div Nats)

 

Frostproof (for example) gets 11hr 8mins of daylight even a full 2 weeks later on Nov. 1st.

 

It's a non-issue, as long as it occurs before the time change in early November. Still a similar amount of daylight... but the match would have to start (and end) an hour earlier to have the same amount of daylight. 

Does Cameo face east-west too like Frostproof?

 

[NMBOpen]

2 minutes ago, shred said:

Does Cameo face east-west too like Frostproof?

 

Bays face north