Winterswijk, Here I come!

In a little over four hours I will board the shuttle bus for the hour and a half bus ride to the Seattle-Tacoma airport. At six thirty my flight is scheduled to take off for the ten hour flight to Amsterdam, arriving at 1:30pm Amsterdam time. Robin Taylor, the editor of Front Sight Magazine will arrive at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam  thirty minutes before I arrive, and we plan to meet there, then ride with Hanneke Vermeulen out to Winterswijk, where the European Steel Challenge match is held. It's about an hour and a half by road to get there. Hanneke is the co-editor and publisher of a magazine in Europe covering IPSC and Steel Challenge shooting, unfortunately I can't remember the proper name of their magazine. (Note to self: Write down the name of Hanneke's magazine so you can remember it!)

To help keep costs down, Robin and I will be sharing a room in Winterswijk. The hotel is barely a block from the range, so we don't need to rent a car while we're there. Unfortunately KeeWee will not be making the trip this year as she is planning to travel to New Zealand this Fall to visit family instead, and we just don't have to money to pay for both trips. In fact, if it were not for my sponsor GunUp.Com, I wouldn't be able to go, either!

Robin will be shooting Centerfire Iron Sight class, and I will be shooting the Rimfire Optic and Centerfire Optic classes. Monday morning after the match I will be heading back to the airport to fly home, while Robin will be staying one more week and shooting an IPSC match in Germany before flying home.

This will be an interesting match for me, particularly my venture into Centerfire Optic Class. This will be my first major match in Centerfire Optic class (also called Centerfire Open). I haven't competed in any of the centerfire classes for years due to the cost of the ammo it takes to become competitive, and also the cost of a competitive gun for the Open class. Since by far the most important factor in shooting is trigger control, with all of the rimfire shooting I do, trigger control should be OK. The main things I will need to concentrate on are things like drawing the gun from the holster, remembering to take the safety off, and remembering to watch the red dot when I'm trying to remember other things at the same time. With practice the draw becomes almost automatic as it becomes a "Muscle Memory" action, but for now, I haven't had enough time to practice it to that level so I will have to think about it each time. Since it was only last week that I even learned that I would be shooting in Open, I haven't had much time to practice for it. Since it's all just for fun anyway, I'm not expecting any spectacular scores, but if I can manage to shoot the match smoothly and not make any big mental mistakes I should not be last, at least!

I am really looking forward to seeing all of the great folks I've met in Winterswijk the last two years, including, but not limited to Hans, Jolanda, Jeroen, (hope I spelled that right) Chris, Peter, Jeffrey, Jan, Harry, Melissa, Sascha, Karin, Lucien, Andre, all of the great German guys, and a lot more that I'm forgetting!

I'm not looking forward to the traveling part, and I wish I could afford to go over a few days earlier and get over the jet-lag a bit, but beyond that, I can hardly wait to get there. In the Steel Shooting world, the European Steel Challenge Championships is by far the best and most fun match of all!

I'll try to post updates from Winterswijk, when I can.......