The Scene: Just before dawn day 2 of the 2008 Rio Salado Desert Classic Area 2 Championship, Stage 2 “And This Is For You”. Squad 21 receives their briefing and begins to prepare. The first shooter of the day loads in the predawn light, knife in hand awaits the signal to begin. Are you ready, Standby, the morning explodes awake with the new day of competition.

I’m next to shoot 7:09 am, I take my place in the shooters box. Make ready. I chamber a round into my Single Stack Springfield 1911 .45 from my Barney mag and replace it with a fully loaded 8 rounder and holster. I take the knife in my strong hand facing North downrange ready to stab the target just to my right. Are you ready? Standby? I stab the target with the knife and reach for my draw, BAM! The sun breaks over the top of the berm blinding me as I draw, Holy Carp! What happened to the popper? Boom I shoot and the popper falls, I swing slightly to the right, where’s the paper target? Boom, Boom, I hope I got those hits. I pivot to the left, and engage the paper to the West, thankfully out of the sun.

I try to remain focused as I blink away the spots and struggle to regain my vision. I slap in my first reload as I step on the bear trap that will activate the clamshell in front of me. I fire as I step through the threshold of the doorway Boom, Boom, two on the clamshell before the no-shoot pops up, pivot to the left. Boom, Boom on the paper, Boom, the popper goes down, I pivot to the right, blinding sun, squinting hard, Boom, Boom. Reload moving to the left but looking to the right Boom, Boom, on the hard cover target, Boom, Boom on the paper to the right, lucky these two are in the shade. I swing back to the left Boom, Boom two into the only head shot in the match. Advancing, Boom, Boom into the paper to the left of the half-wall in front of me. Reload, 5 shots, 5 plates on the stationary Texas Star. Boom, Boom two shots on the paper to the left as I move right, Reload, turn right, blazing sun. Where are the last two targets? I think I see the left edge, aim a little to the right, Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom. Unload, show clear.

So begins my day 2 of the 21st Annual Rio Salado Desert Classic held November 6th – 9th, 2008. As if the match didn’t have enough challenges, to have the Arizona sunrise breach the berm at the instant that you begin your first run of the day adds to the spice that makes up this must shoot match. This year the Desert Classic lived up to it’s reputation, and in many competitors opinion, beyond. The majority of competitors that I spoke to praised this years match as a shooters match. A match won or lost in the shooting and in those shooters minds, as it should be.

The Stages

Each of the 11 stages presented the competitors with a challenge that was best solved executing the fundamentals, sight-picture and trigger work, quickly. This wasn’t a slow match by any means, but you had to let the match come to you. If you tried to just blow through the match you were rewarded with misses and low points, in this kind of match the shooter closest to the edge with the least shooting mistakes wins.

Isn’t that always how you win? No, in some matches, and past Desert Classics are no exception, the mistakes might be missing the barrel with the grenade, or having the proper door-breaching technique, working the brakes on a roller coaster, or failing to carry luggage in “normal” carry position. Non-shooting tasks.

Not so much this match, this was a shooting match. The only exceptions would be the start positions on Stage 5 from the back seat of a car, and Stage 10 lying on a bed which I’m sure proved more challenging for some.

Am I against stages with built-in distractions or tasks to be completed? No, as long as the shooter has control over the task and the outcome is determined ultimately by the shooting, not the task. Off my soapbox back to the match.

It seems that each year the match is remembered for a specific stage or theme. It may be the number of memory stages one year, or the year of the roller coaster, or the wall stage. If there is a stand out this year it would have to be the speed of the swingers on stages 9, 10, and 11.

Fully 80% of the Limited shooters had a miss on Stage 9 and I’ll lay odds at least one miss was on a swinger. For Production 75%, 66% for Revolver, for Open it was 55%, L10 only 2 out of 21 had all their hits, and sorry to say Single Stack had only 1 shooter get all of his hits on Stage 9.

Stages 10 and 11 while very fast, were much closer than Stage 9 so the majority of shooters got their hits on the swingers, eventually.

The theme for the match this year was the movie The Godfather, each stage was named for a scene from the movie. For the most part the stage design resulted in the stages being shot the same way by most shooters. At least within a division. The target presentation, the fault lines, starting positions didn’t lend themselves to big variations of shooting solutions.

The Strategies

Certainly shooting Single Stack or Revolver resulted in a solution different from a higher capacity division but within each division most competitors shot the same way. The result again is a match that is won or lost on shooting. The stage designs did allow the various divisions to shoot the stages without undue compromise such as forced static reloads, but there wasn’t much room for error.

A good example is Stage 4, Fredo Shoots Back. Start position standing holding a gift box to the side of a car. On signal engage targets. The shooter had a choice of starting to the left or right, I chose left as there were two paper targets wide open in front of a series of walls behind which the rest of the targets were placed.

Moving to a window in the first wall a popper that activated a swinger visible only from a port later in the course of fire was available along with three paper targets. If you were shooting L10 or Single Stack you reloaded going into the window. Revolvers would pickup another paper through the window before reloading.

Then a sprint to the right to a wall with two windows one of which you could shoot a popper that again activated a swinger available in a later port, a paper with a no-shoot and a paper hidden behind a barrel. Through the second window were two paper. If you stood in the right spot you could shoot all targets through the two windows. For Single Stack it was nine shots.

The next position was a low port through a forward wall on two paper and a swinger, only six shots. If you shot carefully through the two windows to slide lock you’d get fully loaded by that next port, or play it safe with a reload between windows. I shot nine, loaded from slide lock, shot six and reloaded moving to the last port for another two paper and swinger.

For each division there was a solution on the stage, none of which unnecessarily handicapped the division. Certainly some divisions are less forgiving, but that’s why we shoot them. This was true for the rest of the stages, a decent solution for each division.

All but one of the stages were between 24 and 32 rounds, only Stage 11 required a modest 12 rounds. The Hummer made it’s appearance on Stage 1 “On the Day of Your Daughters Wedding” as if trapped in an alley. The shooter engaged a pair of targets through the windshield, then leaping out the right or left to engage targets through a series of windows advancing downrange and eventually back up-range.

Stage 5 “Sonny Fights Back” made for a high-speed run up a desert wash engaging 16 paper targets along the way. Open times were in the mid 17 – 19 second range for the 32 shots.

What Desert Classic would be complete without a memory stage? This year Stage 8 “Do You Know My Father” provided the mind-bender. Compared to memory stages in previous years this one was a bit mild, though certainly still a challenge for low capacity divisions. Many high capacity shooters just engaged whatever they saw in front of them through the various ports. This strategy resulted in one particular target being replaced more frequently than the others due to the often six hits on it as the target could be seen from three ports.

What makes the Rio Salado Desert Classic one of the top matches year after year? Certainly the abundance of props, the stage design, prize table, Arizona in November, all conspire to make it a top quality match, but really it’s the people that work the match. Everyone from the setup crew, the RO’s, stats, the sponsors, make the Desert Classic now in it’s 21st year, the classic that it has become.

The Winners

The winners, congratulations go out to Open division winner Nick Saiti who wins his first Area match besting Joe Bridgeman by a mere 1.29% and 18 points, and Mike Voight 3rd. In Limited Taran Butler swapped places with 2007 Limited winner Henning Wallgren, and John Mouret finished 3rd. In Production Dave Sevigny held off Nils Jonasson and Bradly Holt. Limited 10 was won by Steve Rubalcaba with Pete Corkery 2nd, and Alan Liotta 3rd. Single Stack was won by Rio’s own Mike Lin, Michael Foly 2nd and Bret Draughn 3rd. Revolver was won by Richard Brethour, Bruce Balcom 2nd, and Robert Lee 3rd.

Top Lady Open was Lisa Munson, Top Lady Limited Tasha Hanish, L10 Debi Keehner, and Production Carrie Jamrogowicz.

The Sponsors

The Desert Classic is a match a year in the making. Barely is the last shot fired that the LaMarca’s, Paul Caudill and a host of dedicated Rio Salado members begin preparations for the next years match. Without the sponsors the match wouldn’t be as good as it is, year after year.

For the 6th Classic in a row the match sponsor was Caspian Arms. Division sponsors, Open was STI, Limited Howard Leight, Production Blue Wonder, L10 Springfield Armory, Single Stack Armscor, and Revolver Thunder Mountain. The Chronograph sponsor was Competitive Edge Dynamics and the shirt sponsors were Oakley and ESP.

Stage sponsors, SVI, Buffer Technologies, Hogue Grips, Dillon Precision, Nowlin, Safariland, Accuracy Speaks, Frost Cutlery, Timothy Forshey PC, International Handgun Leather, Hensley & Co Distributing.

Thanks to all these sponsors and the other sponsors who support USPSA. Please visit the Rio Salado Desert Classic website at www.riosaladodesertclassic.com for a complete list of all the sponsors and support them throughout the year.

Photo Gallery

You can see a gallery of additional photos at J Scott Photography as well.

If you’ve never shot a Desert Classic at Rio Salado you owe it to yourself to shoot one. Hopefully we’ll see you in 2009.