This was an exciting weekend of shooting! I and Travis Tomasie started our travels on the 10th of June to Fredericksburg, VA for the Summer Blast and then flew out to Harvard, MA to compete in the Area 7. That's 2 big matches, a total of 18 stages, and about 500 shooters combined! This was like our mini nationals warm up. That is exactly how Travis and I treated the matches, as they were one. Both matches were great and were very important for me as the Summer Blast was a point series other match and the Area 7 was the first Open World Shoot Selection match of the year.

The Summer Blast was a great match like always! I shot their match a few years ago and have been trying to go back ever since, and now I remember why. It is only $65 to shoot the match and it is run in a half-day format which means you shoot 10 stages and chrono in about 4 hours or so. The match director Larry Houck and staff was a bunch of great people. They truly made us feel welcome. Linda Chico was running the scores along with Henry Swartout and they did an amazing job! The stages were great allowing the shooters to shoot them so many different ways. Travis and I spent about 3 hours on the range late Thursday night looking over the stages at every angle. When we got to the range on Friday we were extremely confident in our stage strategies! I have to tell you quickly about one stage here. It was a 16 round stage that had you shooting from outside and inside this house. The inside was so dark you could not see the targets. You were authorized to carry the BIG flashlight with you if you like but that meant you had to have it on you during the entire stage. Everyone kept telling Travis and I that we didn't need the light and the targets were close. Well, the targets were close but if you can't see them you can't hit them is what we said. I think we were two of the very few people that actually used the light but came off of the stage clean. Most shooters chose not to take the light and had up to 4 misses! I had a 2 second jam on the dark room stage but other than that I was very pleased with my shooting at the entire match.

Summer Blast Results:
1. Max Michel 100%
2. Chris Tilley 93%
3. Brad Balsley 86%

This was my first time at the Area 7 and I had a great time. Most of the staff were very nice and went way out of their way for Travis and I to shoot, as we didn't send in our entry until about one week before the match. They only had 8 stages but they were amazing! So many props! You can tell they really put a lot of time into the set up. The neatest thing about this match was that they used the palm scoring system and actually updated the web page every few minutes. As they put the scores into the computer the match was being scored real time over the web! No more score sheets! If you wanted to check your scores they had 3 computers that hooked up to the USPSA web page and you can verify all you scores! I see this for all our matches in the future.

This was the first World Shoot Selection match of the year so I really wanted to do well. JJ Racaza shot a great match on Saturday which put a lot of pressure on the rest of the open guys for Sunday. I was lucky enough to get squadded with Chris Tilley on Sunday and we had a great time together as always. His dad is still shooting revolver and shooting it well! After we shot our last shot I sat back and thought well, I shot 12 extra shots and 2 D's! This is not like me to shoot so many extras. I wondered if it would be enough to win the match. I can't believe I took so many extra shots but all in all it was an ok match for me.

Area 7 Results:
1. Max Michel 100%
2. JJ Racaza 93%
3. Chris Tilley 92%

We truly had a great weekend! On a side note Travis and I both shot all 18 stages of both matches clean! Great job T, hang in there for Nationals, we'll be ready!

Until next time,
Max Michel, Jr.