Hi All,

Greetings from beautiful Arizona.

I am in Phoenix at the moment, and have just concluded the Area 2 "Desert classic" championships.

It is my second year attending this match, and just like last year, this was on of the best matches of the year.

The folks here are some of the most experienced and best IPSC shooters and match organizers. Many consider this to be "Mecca" of IPSC shooting. This is the home range of some of the top IPSC shooter. famous names such as Rob Leathan, Brian Enos and others call this range home.

The Desert Classic, for many, is the last major match of the season, and it always attracts most the top shooters in the US.

This year, there were over 40 GM (Grand Master) lever shooters, and 353 (!!) shooters in total. The 12 stage match was shot during two and a half days, and other than some delays on the double stages, 1&2 and 3&4, ran smoothly, well organized and without delay. With a 270 round count on 12 stages, there were plenty of 30 round plus stages, which are always so much fun to shoot. The Rio Salado Sportsman club has been putting on matches for years, and they have the very best props to use. That, when combined with the fantastic desert terrain on some of the stages, makes for a fun and interesting match.

For me, the match got off to a poor start, with a very unusual malfunction on stage 2: my firing pin somehow got stuck, causing the gun to jam. As I cleared the jam, and pushed the slide back into battery, the protruding firing pin (I can only assume) cause the gun to go off.. Since I was pointing down range, and had my finger way off the trigger, the RO decided not to stop me, even when I did this same thing 3 times in succession.. Since each time the discharge cause the slide racker to hit my left hand and jam the gun again.

Well - I guess I was lucky not to be DQed, but by the time the firing pin had worked its way loose, and I could continue shooting, I had lost 9 seconds.. causing me to shoot an 8 second stage in 17... Not the way you way one wants to start a big match. I dropped 43 point to stage winner Max Michel. From then on, I had to play catch up.

I shot a very good match, had no misses or penalties, and only 3 D's throughout the match. In the end, I was able to finish 3rd, thanks to consistency and controlled shooting. But that jam certainly cost me 2nd, as GM Travis Tomassie was only 3.5 points a head of me at the end of the match.

Max Michel, of the AMU (Army Marksmanship Unit) shot a perfect match, and won by an impressive margin. He certainly is the man to beat in the US today.

The end results were:

This has been a wonderful trip, and as always when shooting in a major US match, a real learning experience. Shooting on the Super Squad of any major US match, puts you together with 15 great shooters, any one of them able to win a stage, and all pushing each other to the limit and beyond. And yet, there is deep respect and friendship amongst the top shooters, and the atmosphere on the squad was great. Each congratulating each other on good runs, and sharing tactics and ideas.

I owe thanks to my sponsors for making this experience possible for me:

Bul Transmark Ltd

Winchester Ammunition
Rescomp Handgun Technologies

Aimpoint

Drummen Custom Guns

Vectan (Nobel Sports)

I head back to Europe tomorrow. I have one more match to shoot in Germany at the end of the month, and then the season is over for me. I plan to work hard on my physical and mental preparation for next year, which will be a "world shoot" season.

Wishing you all safe and good shooting,