Kevin – Nevada State Grand Prix – July 24-26, 2015

Friday 7/24: The FT road trip  –  Ever since Chris had bought his property in Nevada I had wanted to visit. I’ve always prefer wild windy FT courses to the manicured predictable ones. My sharpshooting son, Andrew was skipping this one as it was “more shooting and less tripping” besides he needed more “game time” with his ipod. We were suppose to leave about 5am, meet up with Gabriel and Jim from the Diablo club around Reno and caravan in but I showed up at my buddy Riz’s about an hour late so that was now in jeopardy. Luckily Jim drives about the same as his FT scores. We soon found them parked in the fast lane and promptly passed them doing just ” a hair” over the speed limit.

 Breakfast was at Peg’s Glorified Eggs (they do a pretty decent Huevos Ranchero) and eventually Jim and Gabriel made it there. Gassed (see the beans on the plate) and ready for the last leg of our journey we set out to cross Nevada’s Great Basin.

The Basin is a huge flat expanse ringed by mountains that was once covered by a huge lake. I’m told that it’s the home to many discovered fossils and OJ Simpson courtesy of the Nevada State Prison system.

Somewhere in the middle of the Great Basin we ran out of cell signal and Rizs Pandora app died. I had my Phone but was ashamed of the musical content. I didn’t have any great “kill the man” hip hop, “kill everyone” metal or even any “i wanna kill myself” pop. No, I had the 80’s. I had 277 songs, +3 hours of music from that wonderful era called “New Wave”. Great stuff from  A Flock of Seagulls, Thompson Twins, Kanjagoogoo and the like.  I told him what I had for music, $%^$^# he’d think I was gay. Riz was desperate or didn’t care for my conversation so he put it on and it played all through the weekend;  It was a big haired 80’s weekend and I think everyone wanted to kill me by the end of the weekend.

We arrived late in the afternoon and it was pretty obvious we weren’t going to make the GP required number of shooters but I still wanted to check my guns trajectory. With an altitude of 5000’ I knew it was going to cause havoc but I wasn’t expecting the huge adjustment that I had to do. Perhaps my numbers were already sketchy but I found that everything above 16 yards needed to be changed and changed a lot. I did what I could to create a new dope sheet and guessed at the rest.

Lonnie was hard at work hard still setting the course and  trying to clear lanes when we arrived. With a smile on his face here he is being supervised by Rizaldi. I’m very grateful to to Lonnie for doing all that work but Lonnie please let me know when you need help the next time. It’s a thankless job setting a course, so thank your local MD for all he does the next time you see him.

We decided to head into town for dinner. We all had steaks except for Jim who had a salad; A couple of hours later I wished I ate only a salad too. It’s really a small town it has a convenience store,  gas station,  3 restaurants and a casino. The town was probably only 4 blocks long  but had plenty of police telling us to slow down; I mean Jim to slow down.

Saturday 7/25: Match Day– I think WFTF guys are just a little different, Instead of making the game easier we like it harder. It’s never just been about numbers of targets knocked over but rather the quality of the kill, that sense of accomplishment when you hit a +50 yarder in the wind. There’s really no debating the physics of shooting a lighter pellet at a slower velocity against a 20 FPE gun, we 12fpe guys simply are gluttons for punishment. I was squadded with Gabriel another masochistic WFTF puffer gun guy. He started about 6 months ago but shoots like he’s a multi-year veteran. Told something about “age before beauty” I was selected to shoot first or be the official target tester and wind gauge. Observant and intelligent, I had decided I wasn’t gonna go easy on him. And after that age comment I’d squeeze him till the light of hope went from his eyes, fun match or not. We started on lane 5 a nice lane with a 25 yarder and 50 yarder off to the right about 30 degrees with a light wind flowing right to left.  Adjusting for the wind I took my shots – 4 shots, 4 hits. It was going to be a good day.

Lane 6 was treacherous, evidentially there were cows in the area and right where you’d like to put your feet they left a little reminder. Last match I had ants all over my starting lane now poop. But it wasn’t bad since it had been run over by multiple vehicles spreading it out most everywhere. Happy I didn’t bring my car I jumped on in with both feet. The wind was the same but the targets were 90 degrees to it. There was a 28 yard target and what I ranged to be a 58-60 yard target up high in the hill.

Lane 7 was more of the same a mid range target then a far + 50 yard target. The wind directions changed so you couldn’t get too comfy. 3 lanes done 12 for 12, I squeezed Gabriel just a little more.

Lane 9 was the only “give me” lane on the course and obviously I missed one there. 10 and 11 were off camber and had a lot of brush to shoot through. Off camber is what I call a shot where your butt tends to be lower than your feet so you wanna roll backwards down the hill. Sadistic left handed MD’s like to put  them everywhere as it gives them a chuckle as we roll around and curse them. Lanes 11 and 13 were smally’s in the dark, it was so dark i couldn’t see the KZ on the second day so I dropped another. The  positional lanes were 12 and 14 nothing special there except that I somehow managed to miss a 13 yard off hander. I think I put my pellet in upside down and i’ll leave it at that. “Life is hard when you’re stupid”.

We walked back to lane 1 on the course to do the “front 9” but by this time the wind was howling up the canyon. Gabriel was on life support and I was about to snuff that out now that I could see my targets and feel the wind. It reminded me of the wind I would shoot in at the Temecula Challenge, the gusts felt like 20mph. Here’s a little sample of the wind, Gabriel’s taking a shot at a close one. The far target was a 50y across the ravine in the clearing on the far right of the picture.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a picture of the target after the match only 4 shots were on the right side and 5 below the target. Everyone under held for the wind and tended to be pushed high. I shot 50% here and half of my misses for the day occurred here; I even loaded my pellets in the right direction for once.  I tended to over hold one of the 3 o’clock misses is mines and the same with the tiny Coyote target in the dark.

At the end of day 1 The top scores Riz with an outstanding 57/60, Wacky Wayne and myself a 56/60, Jim W 52  and Chris M 50. My shooting partner Gabriel died on the “Front 9” but he would return the next day to beat me within an inch of my life.

Saturday Night in the City – Matt L took us into Elko. Elko is the mining town next to a Barrick Gold mine. Lots of miners, lots of money and lots of things that go with that.

The Star has the best steaks around a 1 ½” – 2” thick filet mignon. It was smothered in thinly shaved garlic, cooked perfectly and was served basque style. We had sides of soup, pasta, beans, salad and beer. It was delicious and the best part was I didn’t have to fight with Riz for the “porcelain throne” like the night before

Small towns in Nevada are interesting there are things I just never see in California. For example, across the street from the restaurant were a couple of “Gentlemens club”. Out in front was a sign that said something about free and asian but I seriously doubt anything in that place was free.  Maybe it was just as well my son didn’t attend this match.

Sunday 7/26 – Match Day 2  Awakening from our food comas we dragged ourselves back to the range. We were late and only had a few minutes to sight in. I had to open a new tin of pellets but this lack of prep time was going to get me. Gabriel and I started on the poop lane (6) but just like the day before this would mean we’d get the bulk of the tough far shots in the afternoon wind. We both started off good and headed off to the easy part of the course. I dropped one on the easiest lane on the course. But this was only the start, I then proceeded to forget to click for a target, dropped 2 close off handers and then miss 2 more up close, apparently my pellets weren’t shooting the same even though they were from the same batch. I hadn’t time to verify my poi below 40 yards on the sight in lane; that late night trip into town was starting to hurt. I switched back to my old pellets on lane 14 as I had just enough to finish the course but the damage was done I now trailed Gabriel by at least 2 shots and we had 5 lanes to go.

 When it was over the wind got Gabriel again but it won’t for long and he shot a great match. Wacky Wayne did really well placing second in Open class, this is the 3rd match that I know of that he’s done well in, He’s been steadily moving up. Riz won in Open with a 114, I snaked by with a 108 in WFTF, Jim 58 in WFTF Spring, Leonard 35 in Hunter Spring and Lonnie 101 in Hunter PCP.

Good times, better friends, questionable music.

Kevin