IPSC Nationals 2009

Thursday saw an early start by a majority of the team.  Some of our crew were already in Rotorua to undertake a training session on the Thursday, but for those of us heading north, it was a day spent on the road.
We left at approx 7:30am, stopped for a coffee at Mangaweka, then lunch at Waiouru (albeit at 10:45).  This meant we had hit Rotorua by early afternoon and were out at the range at approx 1:30.
In order to avoid the rush, we registered on Thursday afternoon... as there were 170+ shooters for this nationals, we didn't want to be another statistic in the mad rush on Friday morning !!
After talking to some shooting buddies from around the country (and from overseas), we headed to our unit and did the usual shopping & booze run.
Actually each night after shooting saw us doing the shopping & especially the booze run to restock  :)

3 days of fairly intense shooting now followed with some 'interesting' stages (shall we say)
Weather was kind to us during the weekend with very little wind, moderate temperatures, and the rain held off until the last crew had finished shooting !!!
Although the days were long and we walked away from the range tired each day, it was a good tired.

Personally, I did not shoot as well as I had hoped I would.  But I did have a good time & it was great to catch up with my mates from around the country & from overseas.
I've got a few things I need to work on now for the next 12 months in prep for the 2010 Nationals.

The stages were varied in difficulty from those that were just static stand & shoot, to full blown field courses, to shooting from a moving platform, to water skies, to the dark house, to disappearing targets, double swingers, movers, rise droppers.... the list goes on !!
They had been well designed and were there to test every level of skill that could be thrown out during the shoot.  They had been designed in such a way that the shooter really had to think about "how" they were planning on engaging this course.

Well done to those that walked away with prizes, whether they were spot prizes or actual shooting acheivements.  Results from the competition are located at the Pistol New Zealand website.

The team who ventured north for this years Nats were:

L to R Back:   Richard, Scotty, Margaret T, Malcolm, Derek, Ray

L to R Front:   Jan, Reuben, Margaret B, Dave, Aaron, David

Although there were a fair number of DQ's at this years competition, it is great to be able to say that none of them came from the Porirua team !  We only had one casualty, and that was Derek who had to retire from the competition after his back sights decided they didn't want to remain with the rest of the gun....

Anyways....
Another fantastic shoot put on at the Rotorua club !!
Many thanks go to PNZ, Matt, Steve, Martin, the ladies in the stats office, the various sponsors and the multitudes of other people who put in such a huge amount of time and effort in making this competition a huge success.

The crew from PPC will be looking forward to embarking north for next years IPSC nationals again !!

Cheers
Reuben - PPC President