ysr_racer

Day five, Sunday

The finish line is in sight. 50 more targets to go and it’s Miller Time.

Before I jump into my review, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the last four days. I’ve shot (at) 350 targets, drank at least that many beers, made new friends from all over the world, pissed-off old friends I’ve had for years, and answered the question, “Hey, aren’t you that internet guy” dozens of times.

This is without a doubt the best tournament I’ve ever been to, and Northbrook and its staff did an outstanding job.

Today Haydn and I started at 8:00, so I knew we’d be done early. After a quick “brecky” at McDonalds we were at the range.

Up first was Winchester followed by Caesar Guerini. My squad met up at 7:30 and headed out. Winchester was pretty cool, because it runs along the creek. Some of the pegs are above the creek, and one is almost down in it.

As we stepped into the first peg, I was ready (or so I thought).

John M was first in, I was second. After we watched the birds, John closed his gun, it was only then I realized I didn’t have my ear plugs in. A quick check of my pockets revealed I didn’t have them at all.

I dashed back to the cart, and sure enough they were in my shooting bag. By the time I got back to the peg, John was stepping out.

It didn’t get much better from there. On one peg I was looking at the wrong target, and on another I just lost my place. I did enjoy the peg that was down in the creek bed, and the rabbit that was at eye level was pretty cool.

My squad mate Martina had been doing pretty well all weekend. When I checked the stats Saturday night, she was in second place (ladies) 13 birds back.

When she was in peg two she got a warning from the Referee for creeping her gun before she saw the bird. On the very next shot she did it again, and the Ref called it “zero”. She was stunned.

The Ref gave her the warning in English, she speaks Italian. Did she understand what he said? Would that one bird come back to haunt her?

In the end I shot an 16, not too terribly bad, but not great either. Our squad moved thru the pegs pretty quickly, and we were done with Winchester by 8:45.

Next up, Caesar Guerini, nicknamed “The Target Buster”.

Wait, that’s not right, it was nicknamed “The Ball Buster”, and it was.

Even though I did the worst here (I shot an 11) I enjoyed it the most, and thought the targets were by far the best I had seen all week. I even managed to break the battue coming off the tower (once). I would love to have been able to shoot Caesar Guerini for a week straight to figure out what “I” was doing wrong. Because trust me, it wasn’t my chokes, it wasn’t my ammo, it wasn’t the targets, IT WAS ME.

As our squad finished up and loaded our gear into Jon’s cart, I had a tremendous sense of loss. I had been to war with these people, and now it was over.

Would I see them again? Would we meet up in Spain next year? Would that one bird keep Martina in second place?

All those questions and more will be answered in due time.