The 2011 California Sporting Clays Championship got under way on a sunny Thursday morning in June. The event scheduled for the 23rd through the 26th saw mostly sunny skies and warm temperatures after a week or so of hazy overcast conditions plagued the area around Triple B Clays Shotgun Sports Park the host club. The club is located right in the greater Los Angeles area. The event has a general rotation of Northern California one year and Southern California the next due to the geographic spread of the state. However for the last two years the event had been held at a Northern California club. This year marked the return of the event to the South and to even up the rotation will be held at a Southern California club (Mike Raahauges in Corona) next year.
Thursday, shooters enjoyed the 50 bird sub-gauges, FITASC prelim and the Thursday 5-stand events. The FITASC prelim was shot over two days and was won by Chris Stephens and RU was Zach Kienbaum. Thursday 5-stand was won by Brad Sutton and RU was Darrin Ros Graviet. Also, Zach Kienbaum swept the sub-gauge events.
On Friday the 5-stand and sporting prelims took place. The 5-stand was won by Justin Fox on a rather cramped set of fields. RU was Tom Mack. The sporting prelim took place on the back half of Triple B’s 25 station course. This is the same course where the monthly registered club shoots are held and it is mostly flat terrain with some vegetation and a few berms. The targets were just right for a prelim and had lots of variation, nothing was repetitive other than the general theme of a fast target combined with a slow target. It was about speed change ups and curl really, not distance. It was easy for shooters to over think targets all weekend if they weren’t careful. When the shooting was over, current Zone 7 Champion Tom John Jr. was HOA, Zach Kienbaum RU and Tom Mack was M1. Lady was taken by Vandy Fiedler, Junior by Justin Fox and Sub-Junior by Matt Pandol.
Saturday brought the weekend and the first 100 targets of the main event. Triple B Clays sporting course is set up around what is basically a large Oval shape. It extends from one end of the trap/skeet fields and winds out and around and returns on the other end of the trap/skeet fields. On normal days of operation the course is split into the front, public (easier) half and the back, member (tournament) shooter half. Saturdays main event was set over the front, public half of the course which is not usually shot on for tournaments and made for a nice change. The front half of the course is flat but features more vegetation and trees and gives a look not found on any other SoCal clays course.
Saturdays main targets were a good set, again with a fair variety. There was everything from Sunday fun shoot type of stuff to the technical with a bit of distance. All the courses over the weekend had a variety of target types. Each course had a good mix of standard, midi, battue and rabbit targets. The only thing I don’t recall shooting at was a mini. A standout presentation Saturday was a 40ish yard right to left slightly quartering away standard followed by a battue on report. You probably applied too much lead if you were missing the standard. Also there was a station with a nice quartering away standard to the left of the shooter combined with a right to left crossing edgy midi that was diving toward a small bush right in the kill zone. Nice. Overall, Saturdays main course was excellent and I think the difficulty was about right. There were some pretty low scores posted by some big guns though. I think the more than usual number of true pairs was to blame for that. Saturday night saw an awesome Make-a-break shoot off between some of the areas finest guns. There were some very long targets being smashed for the crowds enjoyment. Ultimately it was won by Sub-Junior Justin Fox shooting his brand new Perazzi.
Sunday dawned to another sunny day a little less warm than Saturday. A lot of shooters were finishing up 5-stand and FITASC in the morning time slots. The main 5-stand HOA was Zach Kienbaum, RU Tom Mack and M1/Jr Justin Fox. Concurrent winners were Ldy Michelle Wampler, SJr Chris Claxton, VT John Sands, SVT Carl Westfall and SSVT Allen Coleman. The 5-stand layouts were pushed to one end of the trap line and I heard several shooters complain that the fields were cramped. You could easily see birds from the other layouts while you were shooting.
The FITASC main event was taken by HOA Zach Kienbaum, RU Tom John and M1/VT Curtis Lessel of eXtreme Chokes. Concurrent winners were Ldy Michelle Wampler, Jr Jake Jones and SVT Norman Smith. The FITASC targets were good on the weekend as well. Parcour 1 was placed up on what is really the only high ground on the sporting course overlooking a clearing below. The targets were thrown mostly up in the air and high with a few lower quartering and crossing shots. I enjoyed the long, fast chandelle the most. Always a great target that keeps you guessing as to the best place to smash it. Parcour 2 was set over the "Field" which is Triple B’s practice grid. It featured a longish rabbit that ran behind a dirt mound at one point as well as a nice battue. It was a good event but I had a problem with it. It was only 50 targets and quite frankly that just isn’t good enough for a state championship. It should have been a 100 target event. California really needs to set some state rules to guide future events.
1:30pm was the flight where the main event was to be decided. Saturdays overnight leaders were Tom John on 92, Zach Kienbaum on 90 with Brad Sutton and Curtis Lessel tied on 88. Brad Sutton went out on the morning flight Sunday and put up a 99! That was a potential game ender and put the pressure on the other leaders to perform. The word flowing through the crowd was that Sundays course had been lightened up considerably and it would be a game of trying not to miss. Once on the course though competitors soon realized it wasn’t a gimme contest. It was ‘easier’ than Saturday but it wasn’t skeet in the woods. He may have had less wind in the morning but considering the targets that were thrown Brad Suttons 99 was a stellar bit of shooting. Personally, I thought the targets could have been set up a notch keeping the majority of them as report pairs.
Tom John managed a 94 to put up two scores in the 90′s but he was one light of Brad. I saw Curtis Lessel mid course and asked him how he was shooting, he replied, "A 99 is a tough score to beat." He could only manage a 92 to slot in behind Tom John. The only challenger left was Zach Kienbaum who knew going in he needed a 98 to win. A slim margin of error is that. Zach recalled later that early in the round he was tempted to shoot a more open choke which he had not done in months. He switched out and immediately missed two birds with most of the round left to shoot. The tight chokes went right back in. Incredibly he only dropped one more on the way in for a 97 to tie with Brad Sutton. The shoot off was held on the Make-a-break field in front of the club house where spectators could get an easy look. The extreme targets were made a bit more so for the shoot off. Zach Kienbaum, with the pressure on and the gloves off, is a true champion. He has many years of experience shooting targets under pressure just like this. The experience showed when it counted and he ran over Sutton in the shoot off to take HOA.
The group of kids from nearby Don Bosco Tech High School did a great job of trapping and score keeping. One young lady was not afraid to clamp down on violators of the three foot rule. The kids were collecting donations for their high school group and this young lady got mine! The targets were set by Triple B’s range manager Jun Vergara who is becoming a very savvy target setter. However, I would suggest to him to think carefully before putting ten targets on the most technical stations of the course. No need to break balls.
For the complete list of scores check:
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