Open / L-10 Nats Banter

[G-ManBart]

Just talked to someone still at the range and in Open, it was Chris Tiley, Max and then TJ. R,

[mda]

Just talked to someone still at the range and in Open, it was Chris Tiley, Max and then TJ. R,

Yep. Scores just posted on USPSA.

MDA

[Tengu]

Congrats to Dave and Chris! It looks like Ted shot a hell of a match in L10 as well as Limited, too. After this year, they may have to rename the Tulsa Nationals the Mud Bowl!

[vrmn1]

Congratulations to Jessie Abbate on her win.

Limited and Limited 10 national champion.

Congratulations to all the winners.

[davaodoc]

Congratulations to Jessie Abbate on her win.

Limited and Limited 10 national champion.

Congratulations to all the winners.

3 of the top ten in open came all the way from the Philippines in preparation for the worldshoot.

congratulations Jag Lejano, Stephen Hinojales and the Jet.

[cliffwalsh]

Congrats to my homie, Smitty FL for a strong 3rd place finish.

813 in the house.

[GTOSHootr]

Congrats to Rebecca Jones on her win in Open and Megan Francisco second lady!!!

[ChuckS]

Congratulations to Jessie Abbate on her win.

Limited and Limited 10 national champion.

Congratulations to all the winners.

3 of the top ten in open came all the way from the Philippines in preparation for the worldshoot.

congratulations Jag Lejano, Stephen Hinojales and the Jet.

Add KC and JoJo to that and half the top 10 are Pinoy!

Good job, guys!

[ChuckS]

OK folks, this is how it came out. The standings are the bold numbers.

Morning all,

I though I would start a new thread for the match that starts today. As far as predictions, I predict rain.

Later,

chuck

Edit to add predictions

The forcast as of 12 Sep 08 0745 PDT

Open

Chris Tilley 1 1

Max 6 2

TJ 1 3

The Jet 2 9

Dave Re 2 39

L-10

Bob Vogel 3 7

Taran 1 6

TGO 2 9

Manny 2 5

Sevigny 2 1

Ted Puente 1 2

Shannon Smith 1 3

TT 2 4

Special Category

Rich seems to want Jake's swimsuit entered as winning range apparel.

[Coach]

Tulsa is a great range, and so an obvious place to have nationals.

But is this the right time of year to have a match there? Two mud bowls in a row during Hurricane season. I am just a common man but I wonder about maybe a different month. Because I thought Oklahoma was generally a dry state.

[Sandro]

Congrats to my homie, Smitty FL for a strong 3rd place finish.

813 in the house.

+1 congrats for your top performance man!

Edited September 14, 2008 by Sandro

[ogiebb]

5 Pinoys in the Top 10 .

Edited September 14, 2008 by ogiebb

[G-ManBart]

Tulsa is a great range, and so an obvious place to have nationals.

But is this the right time of year to have a match there? Two mud bowls in a row during Hurricane season. I am just a common man but I wonder about maybe a different month. Because I thought Oklahoma was generally a dry state.

I've been thinking the exact same thing. It's a great venue, but if they keep doing this during prime hurricane and thunderstorm season, it's going to be wet frequently. We're lucky they didn't have T-storms with thunder and lightning or they'd have to sent the shooters to their cars for safety...talk about messing with your stage prep! R,

[Charles Bond]

Tulsa is a great range, and so an obvious place to have nationals.

But is this the right time of year to have a match there? Two mud bowls in a row during Hurricane season. I am just a common man but I wonder about maybe a different month. Because I thought Oklahoma was generally a dry state.

At this point, what Tulsa is not is a great competition range. Rain or not, the footing is not designed to stand up to the traffic of a nationals and something firmer than sod is going to have to be installed. There also appear to be some drainage issues that should be addressed. Hopefully, with imput from our range officers and Troy, John and Ray, the necessary upgrades will be accomplished so as to allow us to consider a return to Tulsa at some future date.

[Unleashed]

Tulsa is a great range, and so an obvious place to have nationals.

But is this the right time of year to have a match there? Two mud bowls in a row during Hurricane season. I am just a common man but I wonder about maybe a different month. Because I thought Oklahoma was generally a dry state.

The hurricane only contributed to about 1 hour of "match rain". We finished most of the shooting before any major impacts. You can pick your poison with Oklahoma. Spring and summer bring wicked thunderstorms that are fairly unpredictable and it can get damned hot. Winter can get ridiculously cold (so can fall for that matter, just ask anyone who shot during the morning in 2006!). The rain wasn't the biggest impact to shooting, it was the mud pit as a result of the rain. The range doesn't drain well and sod is a bad idea. USSA needs to invest in gravel or maybe astroturf on a 12" high platform!!

[Unleashed]

Hopefully, with imput from our range officers and Troy, John and Ray, the necessary upgrades will be accomplished so as to allow us to consider a return to Tulsa at some future date.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and figure that USSA doesn't make enough money from this venue to make landscaping decisions based on our feedback. I don't know what they make on this match but would bet that it doesn't even compare to 3-4 agencies renting parts of the range for a 5-day work week.

[JakeMartens]

Hopefully, with imput from our range officers and Troy, John and Ray, the necessary upgrades will be accomplished so as to allow us to consider a return to Tulsa at some future date.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and figure that USSA doesn't make enough money from this venue to make landscaping decisions based on our feedback. I don't know what they make on this match but would bet that it doesn't even compare to 3-4 agencies renting parts of the range for a 5-day work week.

Or cover the cost of the amount of damage done to the bays either.

There were alot of bare spots back in July during the Pro-Am, now look at it after almost 800 people have stomped through it for the last week. It is going to need some time to "heal" and putting sod back down isn't going to help. The place it awesome, except for this "little" problem.

[atlscrog]

Noticed that several competitors did not complete all stages... was that weather related?

[Chuck Anderson]

Probably only by their choice. Other than the mud, the weather was actually fairly cooperative after the first morning. We shot the afternoon schedule on the first day on only had bagged targets for the first stage. Troy and Ray made a great decision to start bringing squads in early and we were done Saturday around 2:00 or 2:30PM. We fired our last round about 2 minutes before the rain hit again. The only down side was many people didn't get the message to show up early. Especially if they didn't bring a laptop with them. We had two shooter that didn't show up till 1 PM. They still only had one stage left to shoot when the rain started falling though.

As far as the rang surface, I think it is more a problem with the drainage than with the sod. We finished on Stage 1 and the range looked almost untouched. Even where people were walking back and forth to targets and the shooting box wasn't even that bad. This bay clearly drains and works just fine. If they can get the drainage issues resolved on the back side I think that will solve a lot of problems.

I hope that USPSA will consider coming back next year. I think it is a great range in a good area. Tom put a lot of effort into developing what is the premier facility for shooting our sport. If we can manage to get one scheduled without the stupid rain, I think we'll be in good shape.

[mike cyrwus]

ussa has a contract with uspsa.

[shopgun]

It's hard to believe with the great amount of money USSA has invested in the range, why this problem is even there. They didn't just throw up some berms on existing terrain, the whole thing was earthmover city.Whoever did the design work really dropped the ball. A few degrees downslope to the backstops and some drain tile would have made it go away. The facility itself is awesome, just not for 800 people.

[KGentry]

Tulsa is a great range, and so an obvious place to have nationals.

But is this the right time of year to have a match there? Two mud bowls in a row during Hurricane season. I am just a common man but I wonder about maybe a different month. Because I thought Oklahoma was generally a dry state.

At this point, what Tulsa is not is a great competition range. Rain or not, the footing is not designed to stand up to the traffic of a nationals and something firmer than sod is going to have to be installed. There also appear to be some drainage issues that should be addressed. Hopefully, with imput from our range officers and Troy, John and Ray, the necessary upgrades will be accomplished so as to allow us to consider a return to Tulsa at some future date.

This is a correct and accurate view of the USSA Range. Most shooters pay allot of money and take time off work to shoot the match - having said that - Having over ankle deep mud at the Nationals is a no go - Many people are not saying it here but they will not be going back to Tulsa for this match again. The RO's had to toughest jobs and worked their behinds off in constant rain and thick deep mud! Shooters that relied on speed were reduced to ice skating through the stages desperately attempting to not break the 180 OR fall butt first into the thick GOO!! The bays have no drainage - put 800 shooters through bermuda grass on good days and it will disappear. I think USPSA is regretting the contract they signed - IMHO -

I for one thought the stage designs were fantastic but unfortunately we could not enjoy the match due to the surface or lack thereof - It is always fun to shoot with fellow shooters from around the world and to meet new ones but taking the risk of people getting hurt to shoot a match is just not what it should be about <---- That statement was from one of the RO's

I want to say that the USSA facility is beautiful and if they would have proper drainage it would be an outstanding facility!! The people are friendly and they provided allot of support to the shooters - The range surface problem should not get in the way of many years of shooting fun for USPSA Major matches or a Potential World Shoot.

Edited September 14, 2008 by KGentry

[cpty1]

Noticed that several competitors did not complete all stages... was that weather related?

I can't speak for everyone who didn't finish all the stages but I know of two shooters and one vendor, other than myself, who chose not to shoot at all or who didn't finish their last day stages. I'm sure there were many more. Even though the weather Friday and Saturday (early am) was good, the mud was as messy and aggrevating as the rain. I loved the references to the "start ponds" that I heard.

I shot the first day in the rain with my am squad and was going to set up the vendor goods in the pm, but we were nearly 4 o'clock finishing (as opposed to noon as scheduled) so vending that day was out. Everyone was so wet and muddy that there wasn't any traffic in the vendor tent anyway. All everyone wanted to do was get back to the hotel for a shower.

Since the weather Friday was good, I opted to not finish the match because I knew vending Saturday was out due to Ike. I needed to try and recoup my sponsor and vending investment and I knew Friday was my only chance. I didn't see a single vendor set up Saturday. Most everyone who was driving back to the southeast left Saturday after last shot instead of Sunday as planned in an attempt to get across Louisiana and Arkansas before Ike rolled through there. I've never been so glad to get off a range in my life. It was nasty.

[BritinUSA]

Just got back to Boulder, I left the match hotel about 3:30am... I was a little disappointed when the receptionist at the hotel showed me a cardboard box with about half a dozen wooden USPSA plaques and stage medals and asked me if I knew who they belonged to. It seems that the hotel staff were picking them up off the floor where they were presumably discarded by their recipients.

Now, I'll be the first to acknowledge that these wooden plaques are not the most attractive trophies (it may be time for a redesign) but I think it's a little disrespectful to just throw them away at the hotel or leave them lying around for the hotel staff to pick up and dispose of.

They had also found some electronic hearing protectors and a set of keys.

As to this whole issue of the range; I also noticed that some berms were in remarkably good condition, the stage with the curved walls, I think it was 17, was almost completely dry. So something was working right in some places. But even without the rain, the traffic from 800 shooters will remove any trace of grass as someone else has already noted in this thread. If they want to host a World Shoot with it's potential 1200-1300 shooters then something needs to be done. I'm not a construction expert so I know nothing of these things but whatever needs to be done, should be done before we consider hosting another Nationals here.

The stages themselves were GREAT !. RO's were working their butts off and exhaustion was evident on every stage. I heard from more than one source that some RO's were saying that they won't go back to Tulsa. It was such a shame, it could have been an awesome match.

[XD Niner]

This was my first Nationals and I want to offer a huge thanks to all the people (with the exception of the weather man) who worked so hard to put this match together. The COFs were very challenging and well designed. Kudos to the my great squad mates on Squad 7 as well.

Those who shot the afternoon shift on Friday had a distinct advantage of those on the opposite shift but that is the luck of the draw along with that fickle Mother, Nature. At one point it was raining so hard on Friday morning that the tips of my fingers were as wrinkled as if I had soaked them for an hour in a bucket of water.

The match staff did an outstanding job of keeping things reasonably on track given the rain and the mud due to the abysmal drainage. I can't imagine how the ROs on Stages 5-16 even survived. These guys and gals spent most of Friday, 12 hours or more on Saturday and another full day on Sunday wading through the worst quagmire I've ever seen. The mud was so thick it tried to suck the shoes or boots off your feet. I suspect every one of the ROs on those stages with mud everywhere had very sore legs and blistered feet by the end of the match. I heard from reliable sources that the Coast Guard is going to provide water survival and rescue training as part of the new RO course.

I am a Civil engineer and while no drainage expert I recognize and botched design concept when I see it (or more accurately, am standing ankle deep in it.) The basic problem is the inability to move water out of the bays. . The grading within most of the bays is improper and next to no thought was given to collecting and moving drainage water within the range given the soils and lack of very flat terrain. A deep bed of gravel by itself would hide the situation but not cure it. The soil that would be beneath the gravel appears to be a very poor draining loam. The soil pores plug with fines and in effect would create a bath tub. Clay may even have been placed just under the sod layer which would make the problem even worse.

USSA has an immense and now very difficult problem to solve. Given what the competitors are holding in their hands while moving rapidly and changing direction suddenly, footing that is as bad as we experienced this week is cause for serious safety concerns. No one can control the weather so this situation will persist until effective corrective action is taken and that will be expensive.

Now for a bit of humor, ask Open B Class Champion Fireant and partner in crime kend what happens when you forget to take all the loose ammo out of your shorts before taking them through the Tulsa Airport security in your carry on bags.

Edited September 15, 2008 by XD Niner