Who likes / hates the CC running the event like a competition?

Wow everyone has to shoot all over. No favorites. I heard some old farts complaining.

I love it. I am here to compete

 

I was there this week. The random system was a pain in the butt, but ir worked. As soon as the banks are drawn it is on your SOS Clays app.

 

Why?

 

I love it. If I’m showing up to compete, give me the full test. No favorites, no soft stations, that’s how you find out who’s actually shooting well that day...

 

I'm sure that there are very few if any at all on this site who competed at the old Vandalia Grand when you walked the line. When I started (my first Grand to compete in was 1957) there were 32 program traps and the line was split East and West and after the first 25 you moved 4 traps to shoot your 2nd 25 and 4 to shoot your 3rd and 4 more to shoot your last 25. I believe it was after they went to 48 traps that they split the line into quarters East East and East West and West East and West West. and everything seemed to work quite well. Then along came the high dollar camp grounds that took away a huge amount of the on grounds parking and then the high dollar motor coach folks whined until they could shoot on a (4 trap bank) right in front of their camp spot and in my opinion things haven't been right ever since. The folks who wanted the bank system said that the older shooters couldn't walk the line any more, but there were always a lot of older shooters and they managed to get er done some way and if the bank system hadn't come on the scene the older shooters would still be getting it done (me included). Someone who comes to mind is Emory Moyer who did it on crutches. He was a 27yd shooter and an OSTA director and OSTA president. I just didn't hear these facts I lived and shot back when the Grand was truly Grand! I believe there were more shooters who shot the Grand in 1957 than shot it this year and it grew year after year to reach a high point of 5000 entries in the Grand American Handicap. Just something I needed to put in print.
Dave Berlet

 

Dave,
Thanks for telling the post GRAND shooters what it was like.
Been there done that. Albeit my first was exactly 20 years after yours but yeah we walked. And, I saw plenty of “older” shooters doing the same thing.

The only time I got to ride in a golf cart was when Joe Bethel the line ref gave me a ride to my starting trap in one of those old white clunkers they used to get around. Well, didn’t I feel like a big shot. Ha!

Odd or Even? Pull a squad the day before and not even know if you were going to be on the East end with some shade or the West desert end where you could cook if it was hot. Didn’t matter to me. It WAS the Grand American. Now? It’s a dumpster fire.

Of course you always had the squads that thought they were smarter than everyone else.
Pull an even squad AND get your buddy to pull an odd one. When they decided which numbers got the East side, the side they wanted, they tossed the other 5 squad sheets in the trash.

A well known, now deceased shooter, that had the ugliest toupee under a Blue hat tried that somewhere and got busted. The idiot left all the unused squad sheets on the dashboard and someone saw them.
The good old days. And, The Golden Years

 

Love it

 

I remember shooting the Pa State Shoot where we skipped 10 fields between houses. You could walk it or wait for the wagon.

Ron B

 

And if you were able to pull the perfect squad number you finished right in front of the old building and only a few yards from a cold beer.

 

I understand many of the shooters at the grand this year booked Uber's to travel between banks!