Park City, KY is home to the Rock Castle Shooting Center. Approximately 2000 acres that is dedicated to the shooting sports. In addition, the facility has a rustic lodge, a winery, and a small golf course all on site. For this event, there were 15 unique stages, 1 3 Gun nation shoot off stage, and 6 side matches constructed across the site and running concurrently (except the shoot off).
“This match will be the single largest gathering of competitors and sponsors in the history of 3-Gun. The match has also been named a points match for the 2012 FNH USA 3-Gun Nation Tour, Presented by SureFire. With points on the line, film crews will be on-hand to capture all the action for “3-Gun Nation Television,” set to air on Versus next year”
The staff at Rock Castle, and the match staff were just outstanding. The facilities for shooting are excellent. The roads within the center need a little work with dirt and gravel for much of it, and a few hundred folks making multiple trips across those roads they took a beating. Parking was inadequate for the location of the central events (dinners, prize tables, etc.) everyone made it work but there were opportunities for disaster there.
The match is held over 3 days with the amateur contests completing seven stages in two days, and the professionals completing eight stages plus the shoot off in 3 days.
It is a 3 Gun Nation event so the professional side of the match is pretty much a who’s who in the sport. I met a number of folks, including the Miceluks (who remembered me, and invited me to do stage planning with them I was flattered but my stages were different so I politely declined) Di Lierdorf, Katie Harris, and Patrick Kelly. I bumped into a huge number of other folks (Taran Butler, Julie Golob, Jessie Duff, Randi Rogers, Bruce Piatt, Rob Romero (jumped in and shot two of our stages with our squad) etc.). Celebrities: Mike Irvine and John Scouten from Shooting USA were there. Red Jacket had a few folks shooting as well as hosting a side match. Mark Willis of course was there also. All in all, everywhere you turned there was someone from TV right there.
Where is Park City, KY? Well it is about 10 miles from Mammath Caves National Park which makes it about 25 miles from Bowling Green.
The weather for the event? Well it is August in Kentucky. It was hot, humid, dusty just not ideal. But it’s an outdoor sport, so it was expected.
As I said, seven amateur stages. Very heavy on the shotgun use. Each stage had a 100 sec. par time. If you were not finished with the stage within 100 sec. you took the 100 sec time and added penalties. All of the scores for each stage are compiled for all of the competitors with the best score receiving 100 points for the stage, and everyone else getting a percentage of 100 based on their relative finish to the rest of the field. At the end of the event you add together all of your points, and rank everyone again to determine a winner.
Two different kinds of targets in the event. Steel and cardboard. Steel is knock down scoring, either you knock it down or not. Cardboard is either one A zone (vital) hit or two hits anywhere on the target.
It was a non-trivial drive down there for me but I arrived late in the afternoon on Thursday and checked in for the event. The check in process was painless and there was an awesome shooters bag for every participant. I had a chance to walk a couple of the stages and say hello to the Miculeks. Get back to my hotel in Horse Cave, and unpack and unwind a bit. I had more to say about Thusday here.
Tomorrow – Rock Castle 2012 Day 1
Great story, looking forward to the rest!