Steel Challenge World Championships - Part 4

Saturday was the big day when the big name fast shooters all battle it out for Open Division honors. KeeWee and I were starting to drag a bit from the heat and excitement of the previous days, so we were a bit slow in getting out to the range. We made up for it, however, by leaving early!

We did get a chance to watch the Super Squad, made up of the very fastest shooters, shoot a stage or so. We also watched several other squads shoot, too, including Ryan Leonard's squad.

J.J. Racaza is always fun to watch.

With the bright green shirt Todd Jarrett was always easy to spot.

Zack, from the Portland, Oregon area.

Zack's Dad, Norm.

Jerry Miculek makes shooting steel with a revolver look easy. It's not......

By mid-afternoon we were both getting dehydrated, so we headed back to the hotel and the comfort of air conditioning. After a nap and a shower, I started getting everything all packed up and ready to travel.

Sunday morning we headed downstairs to a meeting room at the hotel for the trophy presentations and the raffle drawings. All the prizes pretty much go to the centerfire classes and divisions, so since I wasn't in the top three in rimfire I didn't qualify for anything. First in Rimfire Distinguished Senior also didn't get anything. For comparison, 186th. place in Centerfire division got $150 worth of goodies. I didn't come to California to win anything anyway! Instead, I was just hoping to have fun shooting with, and against, the best shooters in the world. I did that, and did even better than I had expected. We had a great time, and maybe next year KeeWee will give it a try, too.

After the awards, we loaded our stuff into the rental Pontiac SUV and started the white-knuckle trip back to Burbank and the airport. We dropped off the car ,then headed to the Alaska Airlines ticket counter to check in. Other than a complete moron at the Alaska ticket counter who hated guns, and those who have them, everything else, including dealing with TSA went smoothly. In fact, the TSA guy was very pleasant to deal with, considering. I don't think he was very impressed with the ticket agent, either!

By luck there were two last minute no-shows for the flight to Seattle just before our flight, so we caught the earlier flight. That allowed up to catch the Seattle to Whidbey Island shuttle two hours earlier and get home two hours earlier, around 10:30pm. Still a long day, but better than midnight-thirty, though.

It had been a whirlwind five days, from the flight down on Wednesday, to the return on Sunday night, and we were both exhausted.

Unfortunately, it was back to work for both of us on Monday morning.

Blechhh....................

-- End of Part 4 --

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I've got a bunch of short video clips from the match, and I'll post some of them the first of the week.