Starting in 2012 the National Sporting Clays Association will no longer have seven Zones and a championship for each throughout the U.S. Instead there will be 5 "Regions" made up by slightly altering the old Zones. I’ll lift a segment from a recent NSCA blog post to explain it…
In general, NSCA Zones have been mapped into Regions with one major exception: Zones 1, 2, and 3 were combined into the Northeast Region, with the three westernmost states (Indiana, Kentucky, and Michigan) being moved into the North Central Region to balance the regional populations more closely. Zone 4 becomes the Southeast Region, Zone 5 plus IN, KY, and MI becomes the North Central Region, Zone 6 plus NM becomes the South Central Region, and Zone 7 minus NM becomes the Western Region. (The transfer of New Mexico was in response to requests by members from that state who have had to travel the 1700-mile diagonal of Zone 7 to attend their Zone Championships.)
So there you have the new Regions. Why they couldn’t still be called Zones, I don’t know. Each of the five new Regions will hold a championship just like the old Zones did with one big exception, the Regional Champion no longer has to be from that region. I’m not sure that matters much but there will be less opportunity for some folks to be crowned a champion in their own territory.
The idea behind all of this was to try and improve attendance at the Zone shoots. The result is that the all of the old Zone shoots (in the form of 5 new Regions) have now become the NSCA Championship Tour with a points system to track the participants. The five Regions plus the U.S. Open and National Championship shoots will make up the tour and have been scheduled in such a way as to not conflict with each other. The icing on the cake is that the Regional Championships will be given Team USA Selection Shoot status. The tour for 2012 looks like this,
- 3/30 – 4/1 South Central Regional @ Rio Brazos Hunting Preserve, Texas
- 4/19 – 4/22 Western Regional @ Camanche Hills Sporting Clays, California
- 5/17 – 5/20 Northeast Regional @ M&M Hunting Preserve & Sporting Clays, New Jersey
- 6/28 – 7/1 Southeast Regional @ Nashville Gun Club, Tennessee
- 7/16 – 7/22 US Open @ Caribou Gun Club, Minnesota
- 9/13 – 9/16 North Central Regional @ J&H Game Farm, Wisconsin
- 10/30 – 11/4 National Championship @ National Shooting Complex, Texas
The National FITASC is also set to be held in conjunction with one of the five Regional Championships. These events will also be a part of the Pro Challenge that culminates at the NSCA Nationals.
It remains to be seen how much this might upset the NSCA calendar that is already overcrowded with great shoots and what if any effect the reassigning of selection shoot status will have on some established events. It’s not hard to see that there will be a good amount of interest in these shoots next year and I think it’s a good move on the part of the NSCA. If you haven’t been taking time to attend some of these larger shoots, you really should. Despite what you might hear, there is more opportunity now than ever to shoot first rate sporting clays in the U.S. and it just keeps getting better.
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