If you haven’t heard by now the Delta Challenge Series has been canceled. As of now the remaining events except for the Delta Classic in September will not take place.  An email from the Delta was sent out on April 25 announcing the series cancellation. The format and payouts for the Delta Classic in September have not been announced.

Delta Center
Tillar, Arkansas

4/25/2012

Effective Immediately:
$1,000,000 Delta Challenge Cancelled

With great expectations, I entered into the 2012 Season with a vision to create great shoots with great returns for sporting clay shooters everywhere. This concept of offering big-money payouts to all classes has unfortunately fallen short of the support we anticipated. In order to continue offering a viable and sustainable sporting clays product, we will modify our future events based on what we’ve learned from shooters over the past year. I also realize that this cancellation will cause inconveniences, and for this I apologize.

Our commitment to sporting clays has not changed. Instead, I believe we will move forward with a greater knowledge of the expectations of the shooting community. As for now, we look forward to having you join us in the future at a Delta event.

For reimbursement details, please contact Rhonda Barfield at rhonda@deltaconferencecenter.com

Thank you from all of us at the Delta,
Gary Gibbs

We will publish updates as we get them.

Update: As of 4/25/12 the Delta Challenge series has been canceled by the organizers.  The Delta Classic will still be shot in September.

One of the most talked about events this year is the $1,000,000 Delta Challenge series.  The series consists of five sporting clay events with purses totaling just over $1 million dollars.  The series is laid out as four main events spread throughout the year with a one day ‘super final’ Challenge event on the last day of the series.  The final Challenge event purse accounts for $300,000 of the $1 million total payouts and in order to be eligible to compete in the event you must shoot all four previous events in the series.  The events are: 

• Delta International Open – March 21-25, 2012
• Delta Global Games – May 2-6, 2012
• Delta FITASC 300 – August 7-11, 2012
• Delta Classic – September 26-30
• Delta Challenge Shootout – September 29, 2012 – FREE to shooters who have competed in the four previous challenge events.

All of the events will be held The Delta Conference Center and Resort located in Tillar, Arkansas.  The same location as last years Delta International Open.  The Delta sports multiple clay courses with over 300 Promatic machines available.  The terrain is described as being “reservoirs and flooded timber land” accordingly a lot of shooting takes place over marshes and water.  Targets thrown at last years DIO received mixed reviews.  Just know that they were considered stout and this years events probably will be too.

Payouts at the events will be 12 deep in classes and you are looking at a $3,000 pay day for winning your class.  That’s HOA money at most events.  All of the payouts are of course amplified in the Challenge event.  Winning your class there will get you $4,500.  There are also the other events such as FITASC that have their own payouts too.  A chance to add even more winnings to your pot.

The HOA payouts at the four main events are set at $10,000 each and unique to this series, the Ladies HOA payouts are matched at $10,000 also.  The HOA payouts for the final Challenge event jumps to an unheard of $50,000 each for Main and Ladies.

There are a few things you need to do in order to shoot in the whole series of events and be eligible for all of the monies.  Here is the language from the Delta Challenge website:

“To qualify to compete for the $300,000 Delta Challenge purse you must have competed in all four of the 2012 Main Events at the Delta which include the DIO, Global Games, FITASC 300, and the Delta Classic.

In order to compete in the overall Delta Challenge Series you will be required to be an American Shooting Sports Coalition Member. Your ASSC membership will help raise the level of the sport as shooters from across the country realize greater potential that includes transparency in all administrative and financial efforts, national coverage of the sport and deeper more lucrative payouts. Please note, that this membership does not supersede, negate or effect your NSCA membership.

Your Entry Fees in the Delta Challenge events will include your annual ASSC dues as detailed here: Tournament Registration Fees total $536.00 which includes your initial 3-month ASSC Dues of $36.00.This initial payment will be followed by 3 additional tournament payments of $536.00 each. Each of these four payments will have a response mechanism that will report your payment and send you to the online event registration form.

The first Entry fee payment is due on/or before March 15, 2012, with the remaining payments made on April 15, May 15, and June 15.

Refund requested due to extraordinary conditions will be evaluated by the Delta staff.

Following the approved refund – any Delta tournament participation in that given year will be at market price and will not include the Delta Challenge value pricing.”

So that means to shoot the whole shebang you’re looking at $2,144 for a total of 2,100 targets.  This represents a discount over the ala-carte pricing if you choose to enter the events separately.  To be clear you cannot enter the events separately and be eligible for the final Challenge.  You must use the payment plan to be eligible for the final $300,000 Challenge.  You have only until March 15 to make the first payment if you plan to shoot the entire series.

There is still a lot of money to be won if you can only make it out to Arkansas once or twice this year.  You can enter any of the events separately if you want and be eligible to win that event purse.  Just be aware that your entry fee will be more per bird than if you entered the whole shebang.

Register for the Delta Challenge

Accommodation Information

Contact:

Delta Conference Center & Resort
7920 Bucks Ducks Road
Tillar, Arkanasas 71670
Phone: 615.283.0011

Opinion:

Much opinion about these shoots has been floating around on and off the web and it comes up in conversation quite a bit lately.  There are many facets to the story, most of which I will not discuss because it’s not in the nature of this blog to comment on hearsay or promote negativity.  My opinion is that it’s just a sporting shoot.  Go to their website, check out what they have on offer and shoot if you want to or don’t.

I had a chance to sit down with Gary Gibbs and other associates behind the Delta and the ASSC at the SHOT Show this year.  We had an informal discussion in which all of the hyped up talk on the web forums was addressed.  What I can tell you is that this group’s main goal is to professionalize the sport.  In addition they are doing or plan to do a number of things with youth, Olympic and women’s shooting programs.  I will also tell you that yes they do have strong opinions on how the NSCA runs the sport and they have expressed them to the NSCA.  So far the two organizations have been working together.

I can’t say I agree with everything the Delta plans to do but I do like new shooting opportunities and they are providing several.  It can only serve to grow the sport and if you are game you should take the opportunity to shoot in the series.  In what way these shoots grow the sport does remain to be seen.  Already I can see that the payment structure required to get into these events will exclude a portion of shooters who just aren’t ready to commit that much money to one series of shoots.  Then again these aren’t necessarily the shooters a professional sport wants to attract.  This is the double edge sword of professionalizing the sport, no matter if it’s the Delta/ASSC or the NSCA that tries it.  It seems to be a good idea on first look but we need to realize that the sport could become exclusive rather than inclusive loosing one of its unique charms.  Only time will tell.

Entries for the 2012 World English Sporting Championship are now open on the CPSA website.  The Championship and other events will be held August 1-5 at a greenfield site in the Cotswolds area of the UK.  You can enter online at the link below or use the optional .pdf entry form.

2012 World English Championship Entries

2012 World English Championship Information

The 2012 World English Sporting Championship will be held in the UK in the beautiful Cotswolds area around Cheltenham (see interactive map below).  The event will take place August 1-5 and will be hosted at a number of ‘greenfield’ sites by The Clay Shooting Company.  The terrain is supposed to be very good and the area has never been used for clay pigeon shooting.  The event will consist of 200 English Sporting targets, prelims, FITASC and World Sportrap events.  Entries will open February 1st.  For more information see the CPSA website.

View The World Championships 2012 in a larger map

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.

Latest updates from ClayshootingUSA magazine on the Triple Classic Sponsors, Payouts and Prizes…

A True Festival of Sporting Clays, the Triple Classic comes with a Texas style purse. Come and join us at Rio Brazos Hunting Preserve in Simonton, Texas (near Houston), May 3-8th 2011 for five events (850 targets) including;

 

• 100 target Preliminary.
• Blaser Classic 150 target FITASC (New style, 6 Parcours, 18 pegs, 78 traps). New style is rarely shot in America, other than at the World Championship.
• Caesar Guerini Classic 100 bird 5-Stand.
• Pilla 200 target Sporting Challenge.
• Krieghoff Classic 300 target Main Event.

For more information visit www.tripleclassic2011.com.

 

The three Triple Classic events include a Pro Class in addition to M-E. Each Pro Class shooter pays a compulsory $100.00 in addition to the entry fee. This is matched by $100.00 from the shoot organizer ($200.00 per shooter) which makes up the Pro Class only prize fund. Each of the three Triple Classic events (Blaser Classic FITASC, Caesar Guerini Classic 5-Stand, and Krieghoff Classic Main Event) has a 6 man Super Finals to determine the cash payout. Example: 75 Pro Class shooters x $200.00=$15,000 split as follows 1st $5,000.00, 2nd $3,000.00, 3rd $2,500.00, 4th $2,000.00, 5th $1,500.00, 6th $1,000.00. With more than 75 Pro Class shooters and the purse increases proportionately. The HOA across the three Triple Classic Events (total score of the 5-Stand, FITASC, and Main) will additionally be awarded a new Kolar sporting gun.

 

Class payouts in the Krieghoff Classic Main Event start at $1,000.00. Payouts will be dependent on entries in each class, maximum pay out down to 10th place. Concurrent payouts are based on the number of entries. A poor turnout in E class will result in E and D class being combined for cash payouts only (not trophies).

 

There will also be cash payouts in the Blaser Classic FITASC, Caesar Guerini Classic 5-Stand in Pro Class, all other classes and concurrents. The Pilla Challenge will have cash payouts in NSCA classes and concurrents (No Pro Class). The 100 target Preliminary is a trophy only shoot but, three Beretta 391 guns fully outfitted by Briley (including a Triple Classic engraving) will be given away by a random drawing of all of the entrants.

 

Come and join us for a fun shoot. Targets will be set with all classes in mind. There is no need for overly tough target presentations as the FITASC, 5-Stand, and Main Event all have Super Finals. The Super Finals will be the place for the toughest targets.

Wanted to point out that the 2011 Ducks Unlimited shoot in Las Vegas, February 24-27 at Desert Hills Shooting Club, is going to be quite a deal.  If you shoot both the pre-lim and the main, it’s $300 for 300 targets.  That’s a buck a bird which is OK for a big shoot.  Thing is at the DU shoot they give you enough Winchester AA cartridges to shoot the tournament…free.  Yes, it’s included in the entry fee.

So lets do some math.  I would say the cheapest price I see Winchester AA’s around the country is about $7.50 a box.  So if we were to shoot the 300 targets for $300 and subtracted the cost of 12 boxes of shells that gives us an entry fee of $210.  $210 comes out to .70 cents a bird!  A very good deal for a shoot of this size.  You might as well go ahead and shoot the 50 bird 5-stand which cost $50.

Now what if I were to tell you that you could get a double bed room in a casino near the club for only $32 a night?  This shoot is starting to sound really good isn’t it?  You can get these rates at the The Hacienda Hotel and Casino just outside Boulder City a short drive to the club.  The Hacienda is also just a stones throw from Hoover Dam.  The caveats are that the rate is non-refundable and I don’t know how long it’s going to last.  You snowbirds looking for a shoot in a warm place might as well come on out to the desert.  Even more good news is that Virgin America airlines is having a fare sale until December 13.

This has been a popular tournament in the past and this year Dan Mitchell has returned as tournament director and target setter.  Desert Hills Shooting Club has a large air conditioned club house, two 5-stands and a 21 station sporting clays course that meanders through the desert landscape and features multiple elevation changes.  Also it’s only 30 minutes from the Las Vegas strip.

Did I mention the prize package?  In the main event and pre-lim there are prizes for champion and 7 NSCA classes down to 7th place.  Event and each class champion receives a shotgun,  a Browning BPS in the pre-lim and a Browning Silver in the main.  Other places receive multiple cases of Winchester AA ammo.

2011 DU Continental Shoot Program (.pdf)

Online Registration at CH Shoot Results

It was is sure to be a popular event among sporting clay shooters Randy Voss and Caribou Gun Club finally get the call to host the U.S. Open in 2012.  The event is scheduled for July 16-22. Caribou Gun Club is located about 1 hour South of Minneapolis in Le Sueur, Minnesota.

More Info on 2012 U.S. Open of Sporting Clays

The 2011 ClayShootingUSA Triple Classic sporting clays event is now accepting entries.  The event is scheduled for May 3-8 at Rio Brazos Hunting Preserve in Simonton just outside of Houston, TX.  iClays entries will be open sometime on Monday October 18, see the link below.

The Triple Classic website is also up and running with information on the event and entry forms.  I’ll quote directly from the site as it lays out the info in a concise manner.

Entries are now open for the Triple Classic! Organized by Mike and Ben Brunton, Owners and Publishers of ClayShootingUSA, the Triple Classic will be held at Rio Brazos Hunting Preserve, Simonton, Texas between May 3rd-8th 2011.

The Triple Classic is being staged back to back with the 2011 NSCA World Championship that finishes on Sunday May 1st in San Antonio. This combo of major Championships is sure to attract wide support, not just from US shooters, but from those traveling from overseas – making their trip to the US a 10 day festival of everything that is best about sporting clays.

This isn’t the first time that the Brunton’s have organized a ‘Classic’. A history of 15 such annual events in the UK culminated in the 2000 Millennium Classic that attracted over 2000 entries over 7 days. Then came the first Triple Classic – a three stage major championships held in the UK and Russia with the final leg held at The Meadows (GA) that attracted shooters from 38 States and 11 countries. Richard Faulds won the Triple, but it was Bill McGuire that won the last leg at the Meadows.

This time around, the format is slightly different. The Triple Classic is made up of Classic 5-Stand, Classic FITASC and Classic Sporting – all shot between May 3rd-8th. The program is additionally supported with a 100-bird Pre-lim, a 200 bird Sporting Challenge and plenty of games in between the three Classics.

Catering for breakfast, lunch and snacks each day will be available. Golf cart rentals, ammunition and merchandise sales, gunsmiths, and vendors will be offered. Reasonably priced practice and games are available throughout the week. 

Looking over the entry forms the first thing to jump out at you is what a good deal this shoot is.  Great entry fees with the pro class fees being $100 more going into their payout structure.  Shooters placed in the mandatory pro class will find this to their liking and if any find it costly I’m sure they will be able to find a sponsor for the extra entry fees.

May will be coming at us quickly so get on the ball and enter.  You can enter by entry form, online or by stopping by the ClayShootingUSA booth at Nationals.  Have a look over their site and see you there!

2011 Clay Shooting USA Triple Classic Web Site

2011 Clay Shooting USA Triple Classic Entry Form

2011 Clay Shooting USA Triple Classic iClays Registration

OK people just got through talking with Ben Husthwaite about the Clay Shooting USA Triple Classic to take place May 3-8, 2011 at Rio Brazos Hunting preserve outside of Houston, TX.  I can’t explain how awesome this shoot’s going to be! More targets and More prize money than ever!

Estimated $100,000 prize fund!! A whole week of shooting available!!  Your shooting arm will literally suffer medical trauma if you shoot everything that’s available!!  You may have to be carried from the field of play on a stretcher.

300 target main with an expected $250 entry fee!  That’s a deal! 

In addition to many other sporting events there will be a 150 target NEW STYLE FITASC.  Ben says 3 pegs per parcour.  A chief Ref from the UK will preside.  BTW Ben will be setting all of the event targets by himself with 300+ Promatics throughout the events.

Ben says, "This is a shoot for shooters, by shooters.  This is what they’ve all been asking for and I guarantee a mixture of European and American style targets, it will be a fair playing field."

There will be a pro-class with it’s own fees and payout structure so the average Joe M guys have a chance.  They determine who is pro-class.  Waiting on the specifics of this class.

Entries open soon.  They will have a booth at Nationals to take entries but I suspect online entries will open before then.

We need to support this shoot!  The Clay Shooting guys have run their Classic shoot in the UK for a while and they know how to do this.  It’s a very popular shoot.  They stuck their necks out on the last Triple Classic which went to the USA, UK and Russia and pulled it off!  It will be first rate!