World FITASC - One Man's Review (days one & two)

First consider the source. I'm a middle aged guy that's smack dab in the middle of "B" Class. I've been to numerous clubs, and shot numerous tournaments, but I've never attended a World Event of any kind. In fact the only time I've ever shot outside the USA was when I was in (BW) Arkansas.

When I heard Northbrook was going to hold the 2012 World FITASC Championship, I immediately made my reservations. There was no way I was going to miss a World Championship just outside of my home town (Chicago).

Even though I haven't lived there in over 30 years, I still have friends and family there, and I'm back there all the time. I've watched Northbrook grow from primarily a trap & skeet club with one sporting clays course, to the world-class venue it is today.

Day one (for me), Wednesday.

I arrived at the club at 3:00pm. Everyone had told me that registration was a nightmare, so I thought I'd get that out of the way first. I found the registration hut, and walked in to find Lois Lessing and Casey Chase behind the tables. There were two guys in front of me, but I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. Registration wasn't so bad, (or so I thought). Lois & Casey know what they're doing.

Next up on the list, get a cold beer, hook up with some friends, and get a seat for the Opening Ceremonies. I had arranged to meet up with a couple of Aussie's. We had traded emails, and when I found out they were staying at the same hotel I was, I offered to drive everyday so they wouldn't need a rental car. The only problem was, I didn't know what they looked like.

When my cell phone rang I figured it was one of them. It was Prosper, and he was in the beer tent. When I found him he had an ear to ear grin, and a beer in each hand. Little did I know these Aussie blokes are world class drinkers, and this scene would be repeated over and over the next few days.

The Opening Ceremony was incredible. There must have been 30 different countries represented, all marching in under their nation's flags. It really is an amazing sight to see so many of the world's top shooters in one place.

Afterwards there were some announcements, then it was right back to the beer tent with "me new mates".

As smooth as Sporting registration was, FITASC wasn't. First you need your shooter number. I already had my shooter number, No, not that shooter number, your FITASC shooter number. Where do I get that? It's up on the boards. Then you find the corresponding table, and then you get your packet. Then you find your squad number, next you "try" to find it somewhere on eight pages of info, then draw a line horizontally to get your start times, draw a line vertically to get your parcours, divide by the year your grandmother was born, and you've got your schedule for the next four days. It's a good thing Northbrook had an open bar while this was going on. I think we had dinner that night, but I had so much to drink I couldn't even begin to guess where.

Day two, Thursday.

We arrived at the club at 7:30am to thunder, lightning, and torrential rain. To quote Jackie Stewart (the Scottish racecar driver) T'was a pissin' rain.

Northbrook delayed the start by one hour, which was a good call. By now the rain had stopped, and I was off to shoot sporting. I mistakenly thought shooting only 50 birds a day wouldn't be enough, so I signed up for both the Exchange Sporting event and the World FITASC event. That meant 66 sporting birds in the morning and 50 FITASC birds in the afternoon.

But I'm a sporting clays shooter, certainly I would do better on Sporting then I would in FITASC. Welcome to the White course. What have I gotten myself into?

After lunch I shot FITASC. I had the privilege of shooting with Jon Porter (a local top gun), John Moskal (representing Poland), Rebecka Bergkvist (representing Sweden), Martina Maruzzo (representing Italy), and Don Dutson (another American, that claimed he was injured and not that good, but somehow managed to turn in some impressive numbers). Everybody was very nice and helpful, and I'm glad I was squadded with them. They really made the whole weekend very enjoyable.

We started on the Beretta parcour, The 80 yard midi coming off the tower was crazy, as was the 50 yard rabbit. I shot a 13. Welcome to World FITASC. The White course was a piece of cake compared to this. To say Beretta was stiff was an understatement. It was like Chinese arithmetic in the dark.

Next up was the Remington parcour, it was a little more reasonable, but somehow I only managed a 12. I was so shell-shocked from the white course and Beretta, I gave up way too many birds.

When it was finally over I headed back to the beer tent, because that's where the Aussie's (always) are. It was 4:30 and Haydn was already there, but Prosper was nowhere to be found. We waited and waited (and drank and drank) and finally at 7:30 Prosper showed up. His squad had been delayed due to the rain and a machine malfunction.

He walked up and was non to happy about shooting his last parcour in the dark. I said, "You look like crap", and he replied, "me eyes feel like two piss-holes in the sand". And it was right back into the beer tent.

When we finally left, we had been there for over 13 hours (at the range, not the beer tent).

More to come...