News from the Southern SxS
 

Well, the first day of qualifying for the Parker/LC Challenge has ended. We had 66 Shooters compete on the two 5-stand fields and look forward to that many again tomorrow. The weather was fantastic, sunny and mild temperatures. The targets were hittable but tested ALL of your skills; some fast, some slow, some high and some low.

I didn't get a chance to take as many pictures as I had planned so I had to at least had to get a shot of the leader board. These are the leaders at the end of day one of qualifying. I will update this thread after qualifying and the Main Event.

Congratulations to JD Shank for shooting todays high score and to Jent Mitchell who is currently in the lead for the Oscar Gaddy Trophy (highest score with a damascus barreled gun).

Wish you all could have been here today.

Carl.

News Flash!!!! Team Parker is victorious.....:bowdown:

Congratulations to the Parker Team!

Condolences to the LC Smith guys, they're great competitors.

And for anybody who thinks these are just a bunch of harmless old guys with their vintage play toys, these guys can shoot, as I found out last year.

Wish I could have been there.

Larry

Ok...you guys are gonna hear alot more about this from the Long Nosed Supreme Commanders...but I'll take just a minute to inject some observations from a Primarily Smith Guy that you can chew on till Carl has a chance to report.
At half time in the Hammerless Challenge event, LC.Smith was up by approximately 5 birds. Team LC's second squad dropped a few more birds than their first squad, and it was apparent to all in attendance that this was really gonna be a nail biter.
And then it happened. Team Parkers second squad took their pegs and shot the finest round of five stand that this reporter has ever seen! Target Crunching Machine is probably a little toned down as an accurate description of their performance. Other folks will chime in and say just who did what, but rest assured, it was awesome to see, regardless of the color of your hat. Damn fine job! I believe that Team Parker bested Team Smith by somewhere around ten birds when the smoke cleared.
Oh, and the elusive Hammer Gun trophy went home with Team LC Smith again.

Having attended every Challenge event(9) I agree with John's assessment. Simply the finest performance of any squad we have seen to date. Especially impressive was Carl Calandra's Perfect 30 of 30 on the final squad.

Congratulations to the Smith team for their continued domination of the hammer gun event.

Carl Calandra and I shot lots of Olympic Bunker Trap in the 1990's at Quantico VA, Prince George's Trap and Skeet in Glendale MD, and (best of the best) the beautiful Olympic bunker at Ontelaunee PA outside of Allentown PA. Smooth a silk, fluid gun movement, and a follow-through that would have done Ben Hogan proud. Shortly after his perfect round at the Southern for Team Parker, I shook his hand and presented him with an Arturo Fuentes sun-grown Cubano Corona (you non-smokers can look it up). Made me want to smoke one just watching him, which I did. What a performance!

2012 Team Parker. These boy's put on a show of shooting prowess second to none on this day.....:bowdown:

For your information, the faceless team member is the famous 34" Parker shooter, Dr. Truitt.

Here are the final results of the Parker vs LC Smith Challenge Cup.

Let me say that our Squad #2 did indeed put on the finest display of shooting that I have ever seen. At the half way point the gallery was dead silent and staring in disbelief as they all had gone straight. At the end of their third station the scorekeeper turned around to me and held up three fingers, indicating only three misses for the squad at that time. When they finished, the entire squad had only 14 lost targets out of 150 attempted. Carl Calandra ended up with 30 straight and John Truitt shot a 29. Now that's what I call shooting!

In the final tally: Team Parker shot 257 to Team LC Smith's 247.

High Gun went to LC Smith shooter Grant Rosser
Runner-up went to Parker shooter J.D. Shank

Third place was a tie between LC Smith shooter Clayton Harris and Parker Shooter John Truitt. The shoot-off consisted of 12 targets shot 6 each from stations 3 and 4. John went straight and Clay missed his seventh target.

Third Place went to John Truitt
Fourth Place went to Clayton Harris

I am truly honored to have shot with all these fine shooters.

Special mention must be made of the contributions by Deb Frey and Benjamin Hall. Your help made this whole thing possible. Thank You! and Thank You again!

Carl.

Carl, thank you for your efforts in being the PGCA lead for this event. Its a big task and substantial effort. Congratulations to our team and condolences to fine opponents who will be practicing for next year.