The 2004 Area 4 Championship took place on June 4th, 5th and 6th in Shreveport, LA. This is originally my home area, so I was looking forward to this trip for quite sometime. There were a total of 255 shooters that came out to compete despite the call for bad weather. Area 4, being an even number match, was another World Shoot Selection Match for the limited guys. Of course, this brought out the best shooters once again to try and claim the top four spots for Ecuador.

Area 4 is known for the 3 day match format. Some shooters have a problem with this obviously because of scheduling time off of work. I totally understand where they are coming from and hope that Area 4 will look at doing a 2 day format in the future. Don't get me wrong, we shot 12 GREAT STAGES, but I don't think we need 3 days to do it. I also was a vendor at this year's match and had my best business yet. So I can now see from a vendor's point of view, 3 days is great for business. Although it was a three day match for 12 stages we didn't really sit around much like you would think. The match ran pretty well, until the weather came down on us. I have been shooting full time for about 5 years now and I have never shot in the rain as much as I have in just this year. Saturday night a really bad storm came through and showed back up for more on Sunday. Luckily we only had 2 stages on Sunday and one of them was the standards, so we really only had 1 stage with movement. Stage 5 was eventually thrown out of the match as the claim shells were no longer working because of the water build up on the ground. There was talk of throwing more stages out but in the end the remaining 11 stages were safe enough to finish.

Results Open:
1. Max Michel 100%
2. Adam Popplewell 92%
3. David Christen 91%

Other than losing some money at the craps table this was a great trip! I always love to go home and shoot with my old buddies. Our squad had such a great time together. On the first day my dad got DQed for an accidental discharge and my teammate Travis Tomasie also got DQed for the same reason. It was very hard for me to see that happen to them but they both took it really well. They immediately helped the squad in pasting and gave us support to finish the match strong! Great job guys, you truly showed that you are great competitors!

Until next time,
Max Michel, Jr.