Area 6: Notes from Friday

And So It Begins….8:00am and the first shot timer sounded kicking off the 2010 Area 6 Handgun Championship sponsored by Glock. It was the beginning of a long day for some.

Is That A DQ In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Unhappy To See Me?… As the match concluded its first day of competition, range officials were sharing notes on the growing list of DQs in the match. One range officer noted he had 3 alone on his stage, 2 for breaking the 180 and 1 for finger in the trigger guard. The Area 6 match has always prided itself on running a tight ship with rules and staff that are of a national match caliber. This means that if you’re going to run with the big dawgs, then you need to keep up. I’ll try and get a number on how many DQ’d Friday and watch for the totals today.

7 For Max….According to Max Michel, it looks like this will be his 7th Area 6 Open win in a row, and his 8th in 9 years. While it’s still early and there are plenty of open shooters left to compete, it’s likely that the winner would come from Max’s squad which featured, along with the Team Sig shooter, KC Eusebio and Chris Tilley. These three are always favored to win any open event they enter. Coming off the range late Friday, around 7:30pm actually, Max called to say that by his calculations he went into the final stage with a 30 point lead on Eusebio but gave back 20, giving him 10 points or so over KC to take the title. No numbers were available late Friday so these are based on Max’s running totals but they should be close.

The Mini Nationals….All of a sudden this seems to be a theme going around here at the Area 6. Trap has it’s mini grands but nothing exists in USPSA. This year however, with 387 registered shooters, Area 6 is now the largest match outside the USPSA Nationals, which draws 600+ over 7 days of competition. In fact, Max has intended to shoot in production at this match but after looking at the stages and seeing that both Tilley and Eusebio were attending, he used it as an opportunity to work on his open game. While the competition in open is equal to that at the Nationals, and that’s an easy comparison to make, the fact that Max sees the course design as equal to that one would see at Nationals speaks volumes and suggests that the “Mini Nationals” buzz is more than just buzz.

Hurry Up And Wait…. It was a late end to the shooting day on Friday as seemingly minor and isolated equipment failures on one or two stages resulted in a significant delay. Stage 12, the shoot house, was singled out as the main culprit in the delay. While earlier squads sailed through the stage, a shot cable or two later on caused significant delays. Fortunately this did not impact the entire field and match officials know what to expect today.

Julie G.Goes Single….Team Smith & Wesson’s Julie Goloski Golob, flew in for the Area 6 match and gone was here usual M&P, opting instead to use the match as a warm up for the Single Stack Nationals. Life in Big Sky country is taking its toll on the S&W Champion as the cold weather in Montana has kept her off the range and allowed her only a paltry 200 rounds practice before coming into the match. But when you think about it, she can still kick most people’s backside on the range….but there is hope. So pray for more snow, rain, sleet or whatever act of God will keep Julie off the range and away of any practice. Then you might have a  chance this season.