ATA Trapshooting All Americans dodging competition?

How did we come to this? Many of the All Americans have avoided the stiffer competition at the Cardinal Center for the easy points at the U. S. Open. The U.S. Open is level 4 and the tougher Buckeye Classic at the Cardinal Center is a 3.

Yeah....you guys thought the ATA was about competition. Not so.

Yeah....you guys thought the ATA would give more points to the tougher shoots. Not so.

Yeah....you guys thought the ATA would give more points to the club that could market trapshooting better. Not so.

Yeah....you guys thought the ATA would give more points to the shoot with the most shooters. Not so.

Maybe you thought the ATA would give more points to the shoot that had the nicer venue. Not so

The shoot where the director has a business has the most points. Ha Ha Surprised?

This will work in the favor of the CC next year. Keep the points at the Gipson's shop. The money will be won at the Cardinal Center.

 

Absolutely correct. The US Open is a joke compared to the Buckeye Classic. Heck, even the lowly NJ State Shoot looked good in comparison. As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures! Just a few fools with more money than brains chasing points instead of cold cash. Certainly not the ATA I grew up with. In the meantime the wife and I just keep adding up our weekly earnings at a local 50 target Lewis class shoot. We love collecting those envelopes!

 

Just got home from the Buckeye at the Cardinal Center. Excellent shoot and attendance finished a bit ahead of last year. Just to keep the information on this forum correct, the Buckeye has earned (based on # of entries) a comp factor of 5 every year since 2011 including this year. I have no idea who attended which shoot or why, but I can tell you there was no shortage of great shooters at the Buckeye! I did have one All American tell me that we had more squads on some the events at the Buckeye then they had shooters at the U.S. Open. I haven't verified that statement. I also heard that both shoots had better attendance than last year. Always glad to hear that any shoot is up. I do feel the ATA has compromised their own All American points system by arbitrarily assigning a comp factor of 4 to events with less than 100 entries. Maybe now that the "genie is out of the bottle" the ATA will just start selling higher comp factors to venues that cannot draw enough shooters to earn the comp factors the old fashioned way!

 

Great weather and a greater shoot for sure.

 

Where is that local shoot?

 

I agree about the local shoots, at least where I live in central west Ohio. It was nice at the CC, in fact I'm still here, but can't wait to shoot the small non registered money shoots during the week.

 

Pocono Slate Belt in Bangor PA-the place of a near 3-hole target and excellent attendance.

 

Shoot factor of 4 vs 3. Easy decision. Attend the Shoot with a factor of 4. BTW is not the shoot factor based on the number of shooters. If so your premise is off base.

 

This year the level was arbitrary and mandatory to induce shooters to attend.


With last years attendance numbers it showed a 2, even with the incentive (factor 4) it would still be only a 3 by numbers this year.

 

I have been an ATA registered shooter for over 44 yrs. If I were a young man again I would not join the ATA as a registered shooter. It has degenerated down into a feel good organization for the average shooter, and a cash cow, for the elite and the organizations leaders. There is still hope for the sport as many shooters are only not shooting registered targets. The small meat and money shoots are doing very well. Keep up the good work you small clubs. You were at one time the builder of registered shooting. When I started registered shooting in 1974, it was a different game than it is today. It has been on a down hill slide for about 20 yrs. now with no real improvement in sight. The advent of to many satalite grands has hurt the small clubs and the chase for all American points has been a large factor in the demise of the small clubs along with the rising cost of registered shooting. The lack of respect for the ATA leaders has adversely affected the number of registered shooters, you do not gain respect by ignoring the members of your organization. Roger C.