For many Action Shooting competitors September – October begins to wind down their competition season. September brings the USPSA National Championships, the IDPA National Championship, and October, the USPSA Multi-gun Championship. For many these are the final big matches of the year. But here in Arizona, November marks the beginning of the competition season.

The long-running Rio Salado Desert Classic – Area 2 Championship kicks off the Arizona competition season. In it’s 22nd year the Desert Classic provides the fix for late season shooting withdrawals, that afflict over 350 competitive shooters. The 2009 desert weather saw late season temperatures 10-15 degrees above normal leading up to the November 12-15th match date. On Wednesday the 11th, the high was 90, but the Friday match start topped out at 74 and held throughout the match. Perfect weather for a November match.

The Stages

This years match consisted of 11 stages, 10 field course stages and a singular speed shoot. With 10 stages between 20-32 rounds, and only 1 stage with 10 rounds, the match was heavily weighed to the long field course. With the exception of a couple of 30-yard, small plates on Stage 2, there weren’t any particularly difficult shots in the match. The average hit factor of 7.6 across the 11 stages would lead you to believe that the stages were balanced between speed and shot difficulty, but the amount of movement was the larger factor keeping the hit factors in the middle ranges.

Stage 9 was probably the most difficult stage in the match with a couple of nasty swingers that cost many shooters misses or extra shots. Starting with the gun loaded on a table, the shooter engaged 13 Metric paper targets, 2 poppers and 4 mini poppers while moving back and forth working your way downrange. Poppers activated a couple of quick swingers that presented themselves for only a short time and were clustered with several other targets at about 15 yards.

Although stage 9 presented several options to the shooters, the most straight forward approaches required careful shooting to avoid standing reloads or missed shots. Even the high capacity divisions had to be cautious as extra shots and extra reloads were costly as evidenced by only 15 Open shooters managing the stage under 30 seconds without a miss and the lowest average hit factor of the match.

Fight for the Women’s Title

Probably the biggest story in the match was the intense battle for the Womens Open title. Eva Micklethwaite fought off 2nd place Jenny Chu for the win by a mere .57 points. Eva shot a clean match avoiding no-shoots and misses, finishing consistently in the top positions among the women. Kay Miculek finished third, 22 points off the winner after shooting a very consistent match with 1 D and a single no-shoot. Last years Open winner, Lisa Munson was vying for the win until a devastating case blow-out ended her match on her final stage that resulted in zeroing the stage. Repeated gun malfunctions took Tasha Hanish out of the hunt on the first day of the match and she was never able to recover.

Debbie Keehart was the clear Womens Limited winner shooting a clean match and finishing consistently on each stage. Gail McLean, and Porsche Lynn picked up 2nd and 3rd place finishes in Limited. Shooting a nearly clean match, Kippi Leatham took the Womens Production title with only 1 miss and a handful of D’s. Sara Dunivin was close behind in 2nd place, and Carrie Jamrogowicz, the 2008 Womens Production winner, hung-on to 3rd despite a disastrous stage 9 where she collected 5 misses.

Rio Salado is the home range for Eva, Debbie and Kippi who have each worked hard to secure a win in their divisions at the Desert Classic. Congratulations to a clean sweep for the women of Rio.

Division Results

The other hard fought division winner was Dave Sevigny, who has won Production Division every year he has competed in the Desert Classic since 2003. Dave barely held off a hard-charging Nils Jonasson who didn’t make the win easy for Dave this year. Nils was within 4.64 points, placing 2nd behind Dave for the 2nd year in a row. Between the two of them they finished 1st place on all but one stage. The winner of that one stage was Gary Chan who came over from California to take 3rd place in Production.

Taran Butler, last years Limited winner, switched to Open Division this year to become the 2009 Overall and Open Division Champion. Eddie Garcia coming off of several Open wins in 2009 finished a close 2nd and Chris Fritz from Washington State shot his way to a 3rd place finish. Joe Bridgeman always a contender for the top spot suffered a cracked slide to end his match early. Missing from the match this year was Mike Voigt, who though in attendance, was unable to compete due to an injury suffered falling down a mountain while setting up steel for 3-gun.

Limited Division saw Rob Leatham claim the top spot in his 1st appearance at the Desert Classic since 2005. Henning Wallgren finished 2nd Limited again this year. Henning, always a top contender, has since 2006 collected a 1st place finish and three 2nd place finishes. Coming in 3rd place this year was John Mouret along with a string of Limited wins in 2009, John has been shooting strong this past year.

Angus Hobdell took the Single Stack title with Tim Milkovich and Mike Lin finishing 2nd and 3rd. Steve Rubalcaba bested the Limited 10 division followed by Russ Shaver and Jim Zimmerman.

John Bagakis took home the top Revolver spot chased by Pat Houge and Dan Furbee.

Match Design

The 2008 Desert Classic moved away from the so-called “Circus” stages of past matches and the 2009 match has continued this trend. Personally, I am in favor of this trend as it keeps the match a shooting competition. However, I would like to see more balance between long, medium and short courses in a major match. Both 2008 and 2009 saw only 1 medium and no short courses in each match.

The biggest changes for the 2009 match may not have been obvious to everyone, but this year a lot of energy was spent on improvements to the host clubs props such as replacing the wall system that is used to construct many of the stages. The range itself underwent major dirt projects this year, that impacted Practical division bays 5-7 improving the berms and clearing brush and older props out of the way. These longterm efforts will impact future Desert Classics allowing for more flexibility and variety in stage design.

Once again the Rio Salado Desert Classic was a top notch match and a great way to kick off the Arizona match season. Next up is the Left out of Rio match in Lake Havasu, fast becoming a favorite match. In January will be the Western States Single Stack Classic and then the Superstition Mountain Mystery 3-Gun in March.

Credit

As usual the success of the Rio Salado Desert Classic is due to the efforts of Match Directors Paul Caudill and Bob LaMarca, and the volunteers of the Rio Salado Practical Division members and friends. Special thanks need to go to Polle Blanton who took on a ton of work organizing the match and running registration and stats this year.

The RO team once again performed admirably and worked long hours keeping the match running smoothly. Special thanks need to go to the Rio Salado Sportsmans Club Divisions and members who give up matches and use of the range so that the ranges can be shutdown for the entire week before and during the match.

Sponsors

Caspian Arms has been a sponsor of the Rio Salado Desert Classic for 22 years and the major match sponsor for the 7th year in a row.

Division sponsors, Open was STI, Limited POF USA, Production Blue Wonder, L10 Springfield Armory, Single Stack Armscor, and Revolver Howard Leigh. Chronograph sponsor was Competitive Edge Dynamics and the shirt sponsors were POF USA and ESP.

Stage sponsors, Frontier Bullets, Buffer Technologies, Hogue Grips, Dillon Precision, Sun Devil MFG, Safariland, DPMS, Frost Cutlery, Timothy Forshey PC, International Handgun Leather, Hensley & Co Distributing.
Additionally there are a ton of other sponsors that help make the match possible please visit the Rio Salado Desert Classic website at http://www.riosaladodesertclassic.com to see all the sponsors and support them throughout the year.