2002 Race Gun Nationals results?

[Shipster]

Ya! I would say Rob is HOT! look at Rob's Limited Score and Todd's Open Score.

1 ROBERT LEATHAM   L684   GM    Limited Major   2009.5255   100.00%

1 TODD JARRETT      L2458   GM    Open Major   1953.2608    100.00%

That's Awesome.  Way to go "TGO"

[Flexmoney]

Shipster,

Those scores only mean that Rob did better against the Limited shooters than Todd did against the Open shooters (as would be expected).

Limited and Open are scored as seperate events...they don't really compare.  If a person wanted to see how they did...head-to-head...then the thing to do would be to go through and get the high hit factor for each stage (open and limited), then score them off of that.

[Shipster]

DUH!!! I don't know what I was thinking

Thanks Flex. To early in the morning to be posting.

[Shooter Grrl]

TGO took a HUGE fall on a stage - it is SO cool that he still won.

He was backing up to pick up a shot and slipped on the mag he had just dropped - he fell hard!!!  All the way to his back - but damn that boy has GOT GUN CONTROL!!!!

When I grow up, I want to be just like Robbie

JJ was dq'ed on an AD.  He got a BAD grip - and touched one off into the ground when he "regrabbed" the gun.  It was awful close to his feet folks - about 2" from his toes.  He stayed around and still helped - Robbie gave him kudos during his award speech.

[Flexmoney]

Fell down?  That would explain his stage that he placed 21st on.

(He flat won 9 out of 18 stages...got 2nd on 4 of the remaining 9)

[38supPat]

Interesting numbers in the match...the Racegun Nats pulled 430 odd shooters...factory Nats...263...hmm The open event almost had that number on its own...despite the fact that Bend Ore. is a harder place to get to.

Michael Auger placed 20th with an 80% score

Last year I placed 30th with an 83% score  

Splitting the Limited and Open at the same match reall changed up the standings.

Congrats to all the Team BE shooters!!!

[BamBam]

Any news on the hot ticket for those 50 yard standards?  Was going prone popular?  Did people make up shots at the 5 yard line and take penalties?  The top 100 shooters generally had only a 10 point penalty.  Did they miss only once or take that extra shot for the points?  Any Team-BE Witnesses present?

[steve223]

It looks like  team BE. Did ok Congrats guys.

Steve

[Shooter Grrl]

No prone on the standards - the course description was changed so that that was not an option.

EVERYONE that had a miss (except us!) made up their misses on the weak hand string.

Pat - the FGN's only had room for 250 shooters due to the 2 1/2 day schedule.  The RGN's were slotted for 500.

[TDean]

The 2002 Race gun Nationals was a challenging match.  Robbie said during his speech at the closing banquet, “ ..did anybody think any of these stages were too easy?..”.  He was right on.  I’ve never seen so many partially covered targets!  Pretty much every stage had several no-shoots in dangerous spots, or the targets were hard-covered in some form.

Our squad was 39 of 40, so we were always 1 or 2 bays away from the super squads (1,2) as we worked our way down the ¼ mile long dusty road of stages.  It was a pleasure to meet some of our forum members, including Shooter grrl, Shred, Carl, Bill Seevers, Erik Warren and Detlef  (I hope I’m not forgetting anybody!)  Congrats to Kathy for winning top of her class!!  Does this mean you are bumped to B class?

I’ll tell you what, I learned more in the last 4 days than I’ve learned in the past 6 months.

If you can think of something bad or good happening at a match, it probably did happen to one or more of us in our squad.  Lightning snapping the ground around us, temperature changing from 90 to 58deg, wind, rain and dust all combined to make at least one stage complete hell.  Among the things I’ve learned are that at a big match like this, the MD and the RO’s hold the shooters guilty until proven innocent.  If the bullet hole template is close enough to the no-shoot perforation then you are charged with a no-shoot, if that same template is measuring a hole that IS touching the A-zone perf, then you get a C hit.

See, in case of a close call in an average squad like ours, the advantage goes to the “enemy”, whoever the hell that is……

I watched The Burner shoot a stage on Monday, when he was done he called the RO’s over for a little pow-wow.  Jerry asked the RO’s why they let him continue shooting the stage when his first shot AD’d into the ground 3 feet in front of him.  The RO’s (plural) apparently didn’t see it! (although 30 spectators did)  Jerry called it BS and voluntarily DQ’d himself!!  As Jerry sat there stowing his gear I asked him about it.  He said “I did something I shouldn’t have done….I didn’t want them let that go because of who I am..”  Amen brother, a very stand-up thing to do.  It seems that he’s very aware of the reluctance of RO’s to make a “big” call on a member of the super squads.  Well, even after he admitted to it and everyone could see the hole in the dirt, he was reinstated allowing him to continue the match.  Like I said, I’ve learned a lot.

My shooting, well I finished 72nd, I’m not a happy camper.  I was plagued by gun problems that by my calculations cost me 276 match points.  That new ghost rocket connector I installed in my G20 gave up the ghost and caused such severe binding that the gun wouldn’t go fully into battery in the middle of a 140point stage, I zeroed that stage, dead last.  On another stage the next day, the gun again stopped going bang 4 shots into a 150 point stage!  I zeroed that stage too with 300 penalty points, but a smoking time!

I walked over to the safe area to figure out what the hell was wrong with the thing this time.  I had the slide and frame separated laying there on the table and was just staring at these two halves when a hand comes over my back and in a smart-ass tone tells me that that “slide-thingy goes on to the frame-thingy part there..”  Ya no shiet I say as I turn to the person standing behind me.  The person was no other than TGO himself.  He asked what the problem was and referred me to Sevigny cause he Robbie admittedly doesn’t know  about Glocks.  Well it didn’t take David to tell me what was wrong with the my gun this time. The Lightning Strike steel striker was broken, the tip of the striker had snapped off.

Jesus, how many thousands of rounds have I shot in practice that didn’t mean a damn thing and all I needed was for this gun to last 475 rounds at the Nationals! Now I’ve lost a possible 290 match points because of it!

Next year, I’ll have a 1911.  My Glock and me are getting a divorce!

[Chriss Grube]

Sorry to hear about the bad luck. I know the feeling all to well after last year. Glad to see you're getting a divorce and starting a new relationship with a 1911 or 2011. Look at the bright side there's always next year.

[Thomas Moore]

Great article TDean! It's funny because I had TGO come up to me at the FGN to tell me I was supposed to apply pressure to the safety-thingy when I was practicing for the two one handed stages.

[David Benzick]

And what a match it was.  Sue and I worked as RO's on stage 11, "Great Barrier Grief", so we got a chance to see everyone.  Unfortunately, you have to work at such a pace, that you have very little time for name recognition.  My appologies for not greeting all the Enos forum dwellers who came through.

My take on the match overall is that the shooter's schedule was a big mistake, the stages were great, unless you had to shoot 14 of the suckers in one day as I had to, and the shooters, for the most part, where a class act.

I was dissappointed to hear accounts of aggressive officiating.  The only way to handle such problems is to follow the procedures as outlined in the red book.  Pull targets for scoring problems and arbitrate poor judgement.  At the very least, share your concerns with the rangemaster in an unofficial manner.  Only then can he chat with the particular RO's who were the cause of your grief.

The most embarassing moment came when we failed to secure our Rottie's crate door after his noon walk and he liberated himself to carouse through a couple of stages.  Being deaf, he didn't respond to "Here Doggie, Doggie". We realized our error as Rangemaster Tom Chambers walked our dog up to Stage 11 yelling, "Hildebrand, is this your dog!"  From the length of his tounge hanging out, the dog's not Tom's, our pooch had way too much fun on his own.  Good thing he's got more black than tan on him with all those armed IPSC shooters around.

I'll see you all at next years Nat's, but as a competitor instead of an RO.

[Jon Merricks]

TDean, Glad you have seen the light.  Sorry it took the Nat's for it to happen.  Never met TGO but its pretty cool that he's willing to chip in like that.

[Detlef]

just a quick 2nd on most of what was said here already:

Stages were (overall) very very good. By all means not nearly as challenging as reading TDean's account might make them appear (sorry, Tom...), they were all *easy* by IPSC (not USPSA) standards except stage 2 & 3. The WS in 3 weeks will be much much harder for sure....

Officiating (by my long & international experience) was, say, scattered to disappointing. No, it is *not* common to see the IRS principle (guilty until proven innocent) enforced in IPSC, not even (in fact especially not!)  in high-level matches. Aggressive scoring cannot be appealed, the RM is the end of the chain. Cutting the SS some slack, and taking them more seriously than the rest is tempting but should (and can) be resisted. Still, the vast majority of ROs and match officials was helpful, cheerful, dedicated and professional, hats off and thank you! I wish I could say *all*, but that simply wasn't the case. I will leave it at that, nuff said...

The scheduling was absolutely horrible, worst I have seen at such a big match in a looooong time, maybe ever! Planning and scheduling a 18+ stage match with 400+ competitors is not rocket science and done all over the world with better results all the time. The wheel needs no reinventing...

Range facilities were very good to excellent, a range with great potential. Barry still rules as far as I am concerned, but COSSA was well equipped.

Finally, nice to see the faces of some of the BE folks, this was a cool squad!

--D.

PS. shred, did you pick up a firing pin spring for me at the prize table?  

[BSeevers]

My take:

Stages- Not balanced. No required reload speed shoots or quick squirt stages.(usually there are a ton at a world shoot) I hate those stages but want balance. Also no pure speed open target hose like a mother stages.

Schedule- Worst I have every shot. Nothing like sitting on (3 or 4) one hour and a 2 &1/2 hour break in the middle of the desert every day. Shoot in the morning or afternoon or in 2 or 3 days.

RO's- Most are great but we were shooting 50 yards bagged targets( no make up shots) in the rain,dark, at 47 degrees. Ok I guess I can suck it up, But when I heard others delayed because of FOG!, please.

Range- Big and nice but kind of sucked. Temp varied from 30's to 90 with driving rain in August?? I verified this is normal weather for Bend. Gee maybe next year we can have it in Sept/Oct in Bend. Wind blew a LOT(biggest understatement of year) of sand and props around. I like Barry a LOT better but still appreciate COSSA.

Squad- Great to meet some neat people that I got to know in person. Tom has the skills to win M, with a Glock, and it was upsetting to see him held back by a broken gun. Everyone else shot real well and I had a good time.

My performance- I sucked and didn't shoot 85% of my skill level. I can only blame myself for that. It just felt like I could not make it happen. Kind of like being on a physical low tide. Well I learned a lot and will be at Nat's next time to win. I also picked up some specific skill sets I need  to work on.

[TDean]

Did anyone stick around for the prize table?

In Limited, the first 105 finishers walked the table.  Finishing 72nd, I decided that making the 7hr drive home tired wasn't worth what I might await me on the table.   Was I wrong?

How did the shootoff go?

Another funny story, while I was watching the SuperSquad shoot, Travis had just finished shooting and came over to clean and reload his mags.  Even though I was trying not to be one of those "guys in the way", I happened to be standing next to his bag at the time.  He didn't shoot the stage to his liking I could tell (stage 17) so I didn't say anything to him at first.  I finally said "Hey Travis"; he said, "Hey hi, how's it going?"

So I tell him about my zeroed stages as he listens attentively.  I then make a comment about how he just shot this stage, saying it looked as if he waited forever to get his first shot off.  He just kind of shrugged his shoulders...

...he then raises his eyes from his process and looks at me and says "..Tom?.."

I said "..ya?.."

It seems that TT didn't recognize me at first, we both laughed.  No sweat, I've only really met him once or twice anyway.  But it just goes to show what a nice guy Travis is.  He'll let some stranger with a plastic Glock on his hip critique him and he'll still be friendly

Overall the best part of the match was being able to mingle with the best of this sport.  They're all so darn approachable and friendly.  Point in-case: I was kicking back in the bed of my truck under an umbrella when a guy walks by and makes a comment about how it looked like I had a good vantage point.  I said "Hey your Matt Burkett huh?" and told him I was TDean from Brian's forum.  He sat there on my tailgate as we BS'd for a while.  

So overall I was impressed with the character of the top shooters.  I know, I know they put their pants on the same way everyone else, but they’re still a special group of guys and gals.  Maybe by watching them shoot in person, I subconsciously picked up a few tricks.  I'm expecting great things from our countrymen at the world shoot; they'll represent us well I know.

GO TEAM USA!!

[BSeevers]

I picked 60th and choose between barrel and certificates worth around $120

[Scooter]

Shooting the standards in the rain with baggies might suck, but at least you were back in your hotel rooms by the time we got started shooting.  We didn't get started till 6:30 pm, we were to last squad to shoot that day.  Of course Mother Nature decided to bring out the sun and stop the rain after the last shooter finished at 7:00 pm.

[ErikW]

Bend: Tourist and retirement oriented woodsy town. Where's the high desert?

Restaurants: At least there are more to try. Stay away from Honkers.

Range: The high desert suddenly appears just beyond the forests and meadows. Decent range. Porta-Potties, no running water. No hill from hell. Minimal shade at each range. Dust blew everywhere. The vendor tent and food trailers should have been centrally located. At least there was plenty of time to walk from stage 18 for lunch.

Squad: Met forum members BSeevers, TDean, shred. Re-acquainted with Detlef, Karl, Penny. Drove up with ShooterGrrl and her #1 fan. Two other non-forum-members and a no-show for 11, cool.

Schedule: Shjt. It prevented us from getting into a groove or rhythm. It prevented us from seeing Bend. At least they'll never do it again.

Weather: Nice, except Sunday afternoon's thunderstorm. On the books it was on the warm side but I never really felt it and nobody ever mentioned it. After Area 1 and the FGN, I guess high 80s to low 90s in a dry heat is nothing.

Stages: Overwhelming hardcovered partials and partials with no shoots, plus swingers. Most weren't far, but only offered a third or quarter of the A zone. Highly un-Nationals-like field courses. Lack of speed shoots was just wrong. At least one field course was like a speed shoot and one was like a hoser. We couldn't go prone on the standards but we could on the 40-yard stage 1.

Staff: Good, bad, and ugly. Our first was obviously still in training, but was OK. A few wrong commands ("slide forward" or "hammer down, holster" without "gun clear".) I was miffed when one crew didn't give me an A for a close hit at the perf, closer than the previous shooter's hit was on a no-shoot border. He got the no-shoot, I got the C. That's just wrong. (They also didn't see my B border hit and called a Miss but they corrected themselves.) TDean appealed his no-shoot hit to the RM but I appealed my C hit up only to the CRO.

The other bullshjt call was having us shoot the 5-to-50 standards in the dark, rain, wind, and lightning, then delaying the next morning's squad due to fog. We either have to shoot in the weather or we don't.

I finally had a good stage with the bomb until they took an A away from me and gave me a Miss. Has anybody ever seen a 180 JHP go through a 2x4 (leaving a .38-like entrance hole and an exploded exit hole) and make a perfect, grease-marked circle on the target? With no wood splinters or tiny holes in the target? I called the shot and didn't see any lumberjack action. My squad didn't see wood fly. I shot through wood the previous day and made a big, ugly hole--sans grease mark--in the target. I asked the RO if he checked the duct-taped wood before I shot and if he saw the hole appeared. I took his word for it and signed the scoresheet. Only now do I realize there would be powder burns on the tape and wood because I was so close!

I well and truly sucked. Worst match of my life. Of 18 stages, only 5 were penalty-free, and those were slow or lacked points. Had a Miss on 12 of the 17 swingers. When I was shooting 5- and 6-second strings at bagged targets in the rain/wind/dark with raindrops on either side of my front sight, I had a catastrophic magazine failure. Just when I thought I got my act together, they gave me the hardcover wood miss. When I regrouped for the fastest stage of the match, my gun misfed and I missed the recovery shot after clearing the jam. When I regrouped and started calling my shots well on the next-to-last stage, I ran by a target. I don't have a single stage I can point to as representative of my average performance, let alone my potential.

TDean is awesome. Watch this guy, he's going places.

BSeevers is very fast on the trigger. Shred was looking good. I can't figure out why they weren't up higher in the results. Maybe they had penalties I didn't know about because they didn't break down and cry after a stage like I did. Shred did manage to run by a target. ShooterGrrl probably had the best match; she only tanked the standards. She did get help with two golden reshoots.

Rumor has it USPSA will be back to Bend next year. Further rumor says back-to-back Limited and Open a la 2001, but don't bet on it.

[sincityshooter]

I thought the stages were awesome!!  Not extremely difficult althouth I made them hard along with quiet a lot of other shooters.  Bend is a great town to have a Nationals.  Besides the rain on Monday, the weather was perfect.  

The schedule was horrible, but will never be that way again.  I didn't get a chance to do anything but shoot or watch shooting.  

The prize table sucked.  If you didn't finish in the top 16 or win your class it didn't matter when you went up there.  Travis T. finished 6th over-all and ended up with a Frame kit!  What happened to the days of 8-10 guns, C-More's, Pro Ears, lot of range bags, chrono's, scales, Dillion presses, and other respectable prizes?  

Over-all I was impressed with the match and can honestly say that it was the best match I've ever shot... not performance wise, just pure fun.   My performance was at about 50% of my ability.  

[Shooter Grrl]

I really had a good time at this match.  As Erik said - at least there's MORE restaurant's to try cause what we found sucked

The range was neat - but still needs some improvements - running water and electricity are pretty important, to me anyways!  As BSeevers told ya'all, they made the range non-smoking because of fire hazards - the last day of shooting was pretty tough on me as I'm a HEAVY smoker.  But I survived

I thought the stages were difficult - lots of hard cover, no shoots and swingers - the double drop turners ate my lunch - but now I know what to practice for next year.

I had expected to go and be silly and goof off a lot, but the BE.com squad was a seriously competitive bunch o'shooters.  They were there to win, so I had to be good (that was tougher than not smoking!)

TDean is an awesome shooter - he'll be unstoppable with a 1911/2011 gun.  He shot that glock faster than anybody I've ever seen.  Tom was a little quiet, not at all like his be.com personality - I've decided had his gun run he would have been a lot more fun

BSeevers is FAST!  Like Erik said, I'm surprised he wasn't farther up in the results.

Detlef is a pretty mean shot with that Limited gun - he had a pretty decent match, I think!  

Shred was the big surprise on the squad - he's one of those unassuming guys that just shot, and shot well  - except the target he forgot!  He was the biggest help to me in the match and earned second favorite status in Shooter Grrl's book (#1 fan has to be first, right?)  His "real" name is Roy Stedman and he placed an honorable #55 at 73% - good job!!!!

Karl and Penny win "The nicest people" award  They took some awesome pictures and were just way cool to shoot with.   I think Karl could have done way better, but his gun broke and they ended up sharing and having to switch pieces.

David and Erik were just themselves - i shoot with them all the time so I pretty much ignored them  Neither of them had a decent match and it sucked not being able to gloat about how well I was doing, but as I said earlier, I had to be good - blech

The Limited shooters were pretty much at a disadvantage from the start.  For a combined Open/Ltd match, this one was definitely Open friendly!  I hope that if USPSA does this again, they'll remember that Limited shooters don't have dots

I REALLY liked the schedule!  It was just like being at home and shooting 4 matches in a row.  I found myself relaxed and ready to shoot at each stage, rather than rushed and more worried about getting ready rather than shooting the stage.  My only complaint is scheduling the vendor tent as a stage - if they had left that off, this schedule was perfect, IMHO.

Overall, I had an awesome time and just LOVED seeing all my friends and meeting new friends.  And of course, coming home with a plaque pretty much made this THE match experience of my life!

[BrianH]

Everybody;

As far as the weather goes (I gotta defend Oregon a little bit), from what I have learned over the years, you can get that anywhere.

I shot the Western States match several years ago in Reno, most of the match was 105 degree sun, but in the middle of day two we got a lightning storm with rain and wind....half our stage blew away, along with a pile of score cards...then the sun was back.

I heard stories about it being so hot at last years Steel Challenge that the guns were getting too hot to touch.

I've heard about rivers of water at the Nationals in Barry.

I've heard about freezing temperatures in Barry.

I've heard about swealtering heat in Barry.

As far as the range goes, if most are considering in acceptable, then that's a good thing for a range that's about a year old.  Imagin what they can do next time!

I'm just saying try not to spread too much propaganda about "Oregon sucking because of the weather" (blowing )..you can get crappy weather anywhere.  People HAVE been rained on elsewhere.....

[Custom Glock Racing]

Definitly not my favorite range, but head and shouldes above barry.  

Aside from the rain storm pretty good weather.  

I still dont know how my cigerette was going set dirt on fire.  

Schedule sucked by I also understand why they did it (they ignored the vendors and sponsors for years)

I also wish I had known it was 421 rounds before I left, I only had 28 rounds left after the match.  A reshoot would have really screwed me.

matt

[shred]

I already made my 'during-match' comments, and am finally back home (Oregon is a nice place to visit-- My GF came up after the match and we toured around until yesterday). Not a lot to add to the previous comments.. the squad got more than our share of bad breaks-- from scoring (if you've gotta pull an overlay out, it isn't a no-shoot) to the weather to the guns breaking (Karl's broken scope mount and Tom's Glock troubles), which didn't help our attitude. Blowing past that target and the the 50-yard CF probably cost me 20 places and maybe a chunk of wood, but otherwise the match went well for me. Fix the squad schedule and I'd probably even do it again. It was fun meeting the BE folks-- I think all of them were different than I'd expected them to be

Prizes-wise, the tables weren't big-- I know there was a much better table at Area 4 'cause I helped with it. Detlef finished 50th Limited and got a $100 certificate for bullets (if I give it to him )-- after that, it dropped off rapidly. In Open, there were a lot of Schueman barrels (mostly hybrids) left at 50th, as well as bullet & holster certificates and some JP AR-15 parts as well.