FGN Rant

[cpty1]

I couldn't believe it, but once again this year, competitors in all divisions visited the prize table in order of overall finish.  I thought surely with the FGNs being dedicated to three divisions, with the focus obviously being on increasing participation and visibility in those divisions, that there would be a change regarding distribution of prizes from last year.  Hah!

Granted, they did award plaques to the top 16 in the stepchild divisions, followed by awards by class, but prize selection was in order of overall finish.  According to Duane's post, Todd attributes a loss of 30 match points to the lack of a mag well alone.  For us lesser mortals, production rules multiply that loss significantly. Why sacrifice holster type, holster position, mags without pads, mag position, and minor scoring when, for prize selection, everyone is lumped together anyway?  I can tell you there were a lot of production and revolver shooters that left PASA shaking their heads.  I don't know how USPSA expects to grow the production and revolver divisions in that manner.   I can guarantee you there wouldn't have been 74 shooters in the production division this year if they had known how the prizes were to be distributed.  I enjoy shooting production more than Lim-10, but there will be no more production for me.  

OK, I'm done.

[xcount]

A part of me says I can't believe USPSA would make such a blunder. Another part says this is classic USPSA mentality.

Whether you realize it or not, I think you hit the nail on the head with your "stepchild divisions" comment.

[ErikW]

That was unbelievable. They had three prize tables and I was wondering why the Revolver prize table was so large. Turned out it was table one for the first third in the combined overall, table two for the second third, table three for the last third. GSSF prize distribution, if you will, though only table one had guns. I'm not sure if the division winners, L10 top 16, Production top whatever, and ~15 class winners picked from table one or had their choice of the room.

(By the way, when I won my class at the Limited Nationals, did they let class winners go to the prize table after the top 16? Noooooo... we went in heads-up order of finish.)

The second best revolver shooter in USPSA had an overall finish of 161 or so and came out of the room with two boxes of 9mm ammo. Some high-finishing Production shooters were not amused by the prize situation. Some people are wondering what's going to happen at the Race Gun Nationals... will it be the Open Nationals as far as the prize table goes? Should people just leave their Limited guns at home?

I wonder if they just screwed over the Production-oriented sponsors they courted.

[Jon Merricks]

Now excuse me for being so new to this, but if I'm understanding this correctly you are saying they lumped all divisions together to compete for the prize table.  Please tell me I'm wrong.  I don't understand this one.  Someone help me out here am I missing something.  Why even have diffrent classes or divisions.  Who is(are) the one(s) the we need to talk to.  Talk about hairbrained.  I'm glad I could'nt go now.

Do you think it was done because there were so many unclassified shooters?

(Edited by Jon Merricks at 10:04 pm on July 24, 2002)

[Duane Thomas]

"According to Duane's post, Todd attributes a loss of 30 match points to the lack of a mag well alone."

Actually that was 50 match points.

[cpty1]

Jon, what you think you heard is correct, and no, I don't think the number of unclassified shooters had anything to do with it.  There were lots of unclassified shooters in both production and Lim-10.

Duane - thanks for the correction.  Heck, 50 points proves the point even more.

[Patrick Sweeney]

Jerry Miculek went in third, as I recall, but the next three places in Revolver went in 150, 161, and 191.  So, the 2nd through 4th place Revolver shooters at the US Nationals came out of the prize room with:  one barrel, two pounds of powder and two boxes of 9mm ammo.

I'm not in it for the loot (the glory is what I'm there for ) but if a year's worth of practice and effort (not to mention three days in the killer heat) earns you such a paltry haul, what are we doing?

I sure could have placed a whole lot higher if I'd left the wheelgun at home and showed up in L10.  (Like 120-140 places higher.)

And yes, I can well imagine sponsors who coughed up loot for Production being just a tad annoyed.

[Flexmoney]

It seemed to me that there wasn't much thought put into the prize table distribution last year...sounds just as bad this year at the FGN.

Who decides?  I would think that there ought to be some serious brain sessions involved in the prize table distribution.  Sounds like they need a marketing guy/gal and a shooter in those sessions.

[EricW]

I understand the *principle* behind a prize table, but if this is the best we can do (can a prize table ever be totally fair?), why not go to cash prizes?  All divisions would receive cash prizes down XX places based on the number of competitors in each.  Any goodies from the *prize table * could be raffled off by draw to spread the wealth.

This is such a shame.  I hope it doesn't kill off participation in the new divisions.  

E

[Steve Anderson]

To me it seems so simple:

1st place in each div. goes to table, in order of overall placement between those three.

2nd place in each division goes to table in order of overall placement...

3rd...

So if Seevers wins open, flexmoney wins lim and I win production, but flex places higher than Bill overall, then he gets dibs. If I beat Bill overall, then I go second, etc.

Wouldn't that work?

SA

[ErikW]

Steve but people think they are due sooner visits due to class wins. [whine]But if you aren't giving me an early trip to the table when I won my class at the nationals, why bother with classes?[/whine]

[Steve Anderson]

Good point.

SA

[Flexmoney]

Well...I think the classes are silly.  It is nice to have them as a yard-stick...I don't see where a shooter that shoots at a 74.999% level should get a prize when the guy that shoots at 75.001%  does not. (given that 75% is the threshold from one class to the next).

I also agree with Chris...why shoot at the disadvantage of Production (holster and mag position, minor power factor, few gun modifications)?  I can kinda see the "real-world-freestyle" arguement for letting the divisions be scored head to head...but, it seemed to me that USPSA was trying to promote all the (new)divisions.  

Steve, I like your example.    (sorry Bill S., you must of had gun trouble.)

[xcount]

I submit for your perusal and comment a copy of a suggestion for changing the Nationals prize distribution policy that I sent to my AD, which he has forwarded to the USPSA BoD.

Most in this forum are active USPSA members. Many have been to the nationals and many will attend in the future, so your input & ideas would be of value to the BoD.

Please post your comments & suggestions and I will summarize and pass them along.

***** My Suggestion   *****************

First, determine how many entrants there are in each division. In this last match, there were 172 L-10, 72 Production, 19 Revolver. Next, round off these numbers to easily divisible numbers like 180, 80, 20. Now you have a ratio of 9 L-10 shooters for every 4 Production shooters and every 1 Revolver shooter.

Determine a dollar value for each prize (or package of smaller items) and rank these from highest to lowest value.

Set up 3 tables, one for each division. Take your top 14 prizes and place them on the tables in the 9-4-1 ratio. Take your next 14 and do it again. And so on.

Then let people go to THEIR table in order of finish within THEIR division.

*******************

This is a simplistic approach. And I do not portray it as "perfect". It does not take the category winners into consideration for example. So it needs some "tweaking".

So tweak away!!

[Duane Thomas]

"Duane - thanks for the correction.  Heck, 50 points proves the point even more."

Well, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. (Ya like that one? I just made it up.) This is not a blanket indictment of the reloading characteristics of Production division as a whole - it's an indication of how difficult it is to speedload a funnelless PARA. Todd will be the first to tell you he can take an out-of-the-box SIG or Glock and approach or equal his reload speeds with a racegun. But the Para mag is very blocky and squared-off. So is the mag well. Trying to speedload a Para without a mag funnel is kind of like trying to stick a square peg into a round whole - fast. The fact Todd can do it flawlessly about half the time is just another example of what a great shooter he truly is.

[shred]

So why not do a combined prize table, by match points in division?  You get one big table with all the prizes on it (no whining there), and also the shooters don't get hosed just because they were shooting Revolver or Production or Lim-10 or whatever that's "different" (ie: slower)

So the 100% shooters (match winners) in each division go first, then the 99%-ers, whatever their division, and so on.  If the 2nd revolver was 75% of the top revolver score, they'd go with the 75% open and 75% lim, 75% prod, shooters.

You get whining from the "I beat my buddy Joe over in Production, but he went to the table sooner" people.  Tell them to shut their traps because combined scoring doesn't exist anymore.

You also get whining from 2nd revolver when they get a firing-pin spring since they were at 39% of Jerry..

Any thoughts?

[xcount]

Shred,

Your proposal would work, too. It should have about the same effect.

Any thoughts about the category (Junior, Senior, Lady, etc.) winners?

[BigDave]

Maybe someone has already mentioned this...

Isn't this the result of the rant we have about Sandbagging/Grandbagging?  Maybe this prize table bit at the FGN was the result of all the outcry over Sandbagging?

(Edited by BigDave at 7:39 am on July 29, 2002)

[Patrick Sweeney]

I like Shred's idea, even though it would be a bit of work to sort out.  I also like the idea of tables for each category.  I think either would work.

As for class winners, ladies, Senior, etc, plaques for recognition and the regular place in line for prizes.  While using the sandbagger-vulnerable class designations for plaques is tolerable, letting someone up the line because they "won their class" isn't.  A B class shooter who shoots an 80% scores either had a reallllly good day, or should have been an A a long time ago.

[sfinney]

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Quote: from Patrick Sweeney on 9:54 am on July 29, 2002

A  B class shooter who shoots an 80% scores either had a reallllly good day, or should have been an A a long time ago.

---

Jeez, you should have been at the Texas Open Championship last weekend, there was so much sand floating around I was buried..... I've never seen so many "B" shooters finish in the top 20 ...... I think there were over 12 B shooters in the top 30 or so.....   maybe it had something to do with it being a "cash payback by class" match?  

Shred was there, what do ya think? Am I off base?

[shred]

I think that's a classification issue. I was 15th OA, 3rd A and barely beat all the B shooters. Top B (79% for the match) was a guy I know-- he shot open for years in Austria (no classifications there), then moved here and started shooting limited. He's an A-lim and B-open only because he never shoots open anymore. I think that's true of lots of the B shooters there-- they mostly shoot A-Limited, and switched over for the match.

I didn't see much wholesale sandbagging, mostly people that have been left behind by the classification system. Same goes for 3rd-B-- A-Lim, B-Open, 74% for the match

(FYI, according to the results at http://www.texassouthsection.com, there were 7 B's in the top 30 and only one in the top 20 overall)

(Edited by shred at 2:16 pm on July 29, 2002)