The 2004 TN State Championship took place on August 28th-29th in Dickson, TN. There were a total of 143 shooters at this year's competition. I shot the TN State for the first time ever last year and had a great time so I knew I had to go back. In fact, there were a couple of other matches throughout the country this same weekend but I chose TN State over the rest. The competition was not as thick at this match as it had been in matches past. I tried to get in touch with Chris Tilley to see where he was going to shoot this weekend but never heard back from him. I assumed he would be there but he decided to shoot somewhere a little closer to his area. Either way I figured it would be a good warm up match for me to get back into the IPSC mode as I just came back from the Steel Challenge 4 days earlier.

The match had a total of 10 stages but one was thrown out due to the weather. That's right; we had another match in the rain. I have shot more matches in the rain this year than ever! I look at it as good training as it may rain at Nationals and believe me I am ready if it does. So now there were a total of 9 challenging stages. Most of the stages had targets placed throughout the range very close. One stage was very tough, the 40 yard standard. You don't see that very much anymore, so I was pleased to see it. The weather didn't help either. One more stage I would like to mention was the swinging El Pres. You actually had to knock over a popper and then turn, draw and engage 3 targets with 2 rounds each, reload and re-engage 3 targets with 2 rounds each. It wasn't your normal El Pres, as the popper activated 3 swingers which had no shoots on them. It was a pretty hard stage and most people received penalties. All in all the stages were pretty good and I had a good time shooting them.

The Squad I was on was great. It consisted of the Army Team and all of the Louisiana boys from home. We did have one TN shooter in there, his name was John and he was a really good guy who fit right in. With such a fun squad I knew it was going to be a great weekend. As the match went on the rain would come and go but day one was finally at an end. After our last stage of the day I asked the match director what to do with our schedule for tomorrow as stage 10 had been thrown out. Our squad was told to continue to follow the normal match schedule. I thought ok, that keeps it easy. Well, apparently the staff had told other squads different so when we showed up to shoot on day two squads were jumping ahead of us. It wasn't that big of a deal on the first stage but when it happened again on the second stage we called the range master to help us figure out what he wanted us to do for the remainder of the match. The squad that jumped ahead of us was apparently told to do so the day prior with out our knowledge. That particular squad had a lot of my friends in it from the GA area and I didn't want to start any trouble with them as I really like those guys. But of course there were a couple of guys who wouldn't let it go. A few of us argued back and forth and then realized it wasn't worth it. I turned to the match director and said your in charge here, you make the call. I was expecting him to say well I need to follow the scheduled that was put out weeks ago but in stead he decided to flip a coin. I couldn't believe it. Any way, my squad lost and we shot the stage later and had to shoot it in the rain. No big deal, like I say I love shooting in the rain at matches for the practice. I just didn't like the call that was made and I felt that the weather problems threw the schedule off a bit, but there could've been a better solution.

After all the troubles and the match came to an end I won 8 out of the 9 stages. This match was important for me as this was my 4th and final state match of the year for the point series. The point series is very hard to compete in and I will post a match report on it at the end of the year, make sure you look for it.

The results are as follows:

1. Max Michel 100%
2. David Christen 84.72%
3. Chris Patty 80.25%

In the Limited division my teammate Travis Tomasie was faced with one of the fastest Limited shooters ever, Emanuel Bragg. Travis shot well and won another major to add to his list of wins already this year. That made three double division wins in a row for Travis and I. My other teammate Greg Wilson shot a great match in Production and won his first match, while beating a sponsored GM! That meant the Army did everything they could taking overall in Open, Limited, and Production! That's how the Army is supposed to do it!

I wanted to say thanks to Linda Chico. She was the statistician and did an amazing job as usual. She is always so friendly to the competitors and helps them in any way possible, not to mention she will have scores posted within minutes of the last shot fired. She is definitely one of the best I have seen around the country. Great job and keep up the excellent work!

Until next time,
Max Michel, Jr.