Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Winter Rules: Part 2

In the 2006 Competition year, I was drafted to the the Competition Director of the Columbia Cascade Section (CCS) of USPSA. During that dreadful period, I was given free reign to impose my own personal bias on Stage Design and Construction for those matches which were designated "Points Matches".

That is, they were the one match per month which were considered "important", because the hi-scoring competitor in each division/class could win 'points' toward being awarded first chance at a slot to the USPSA national matches.

At the end of the competitive season, we held elections for our replacements. The new Competition Director (and my personal recommendation, because he was the only Certified Range Master in CCS) was my very dear friend, Tom.

As part of turning over the office, I sent Tom an email detailing the philosophy and guidelines which I had evolved during my own tenure. Given that he was not obliged to follow these precedents, I believed that they were well-grounded in common sense and experience, so I was not shy about recommending them to him.

I present a somewhat bowdlerized version of that email here, for your consideration. Frequent Readers of this blog will recognize that they represent my frequently blogged concerns.

* No stage designs relying on 'fault lines are assumed to extend to infinity'. Stub them off with rear fault lines, so nobody moves 3 feet behind the end of a 2x4 and calls it a legal shooting position.

* Per-shot Penalties will be specified in the stage procedures. The default for penalties shall be 'per occurance' unless otherwise specified. USPSA rules define when advantage is gained . . . having a foot outside a shooting box may NOT be grounds for per-shot penalties if
there is no advantage gained.

* Before any Points Match starts, the Competition Director (as well as all other BOD members present) will walk the stages. The purpose is to find stage design or stage construction situations which may cause reshoots, and cause the stage to be modified to alleviate the potential problem.

* All stage designs will be submitted to Competition Director (CD) at least one week before the scheduled match. Any potential problems identified by the CD will be resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the CD and the Club Rep. before the match date. Score sheets will be submitted along with the stage designs, to insure that round-count and target categorys are consistent between stage design and score sheet. Especially, disappearing targets will be identified as 'no-penalty-miss' targets on the score sheet.

* At the beginning of the competive season, all classifier stages will be selected by club reps, and approved by the CD. No classifiers will be repeated in points matches, no classifiers should be repeated during the season even in club matches. (Exception: Classifier Matches) Note: as of this date, this has NOT happened for matches scheduled during calendar 2006.

* In any conflict between the CD and the Club Rep, the final deciding authority is the Section Coordinator, whose decision will be final

* Points Match Scores will be submitted for publication on the Internetpromptly, so that the CD can update Points Race Standings and submit them to the Communications Director at the earliest possible date. The goal is to publish updated Points Race Standings within 24 hours of the publication of the match results.

* Points Match Stages which feature targets which may be 'shot up' quickly will recognize the difficulty of scoring the targets after they have been extensively pasted. To alleviate this situation, at least one set of replacement targets will be provided on the stage, along with a working staple gun and extra staples. Preferably, ALL targets will be provided with at least one set of replacements on every stage, within reason.


There may be more policies/guidelines which I have established, but I think this generally summarizes my efforts this year.

But there's one more:

Last week I established a more comprehensive policy regarding points matches held during the 'rainy season'. Here's the complete text of that policy:

GENERAL COMMENTS: THE RAINY SEASON IS UPON US!
1) Let's assume the rainy season starts now, and establish some guidelines to prevent the weather from forcing reshoots. Duplicates [duplicate/ replacement targets will be] available on-stage, under cover, for every IPSC target in the match. Extra bags, staple guns and staples in the stage boxes. During walk-through, encourage squads to change targets as soon as they get too wet or too shot up for the pasters to stick. IPSC targets with a LOT of hard cover (minimal scoring zone available) will always get too shot up faster than full-targets; include at least one [more] extra for those targets.

Rule of thumb: more than 50% hard cover, provide at least one [more] extra.

2) Unless there is reason to feel comfident that there will NOT be any rain, all targets are bagged at the beginning of the match. Bag the targets AFTER they are stapled to the sticks, not before. Put one or 2 staples thru each bag on the back of the sticks, near the TOP of the stick. leave enough slack so tapers & RO can raise the bag to access the bullet holes. The staples keep the bags from blowing away, the slack keeps them from slitting the bags to tape the bullet holes. See below.

3) Bagging multiple-target arrays is problematic. It's better to put each target on a separate stand, put the stands REAL close together, and peg the stands down. Yeah, I know, that's not always possible. One thing we can do, when setting up stages with several targets very close together, is to tie the sticks in the multiple stands together with a horizontal screwed to every stick in the array. This forces them all to be on the same plane. This still isn't the answer to every situation, but at least it prevents changes the relative positions due to wind or target replacement.

4) Bagging IPSC targets on a bobber requires special care. The bags will change the way the targets are presented if they drag on the ground, or it may allow the targets to get soaked if the bags don't completely cover the targets when they are 'cocked' (usually horizontal). It might be enough to put staples in the bags toward the bottom of the sticks, on the back of the target, but I leave it to the MD to determine the best way in each situation.

5) Staple the targets on the sticks so that the sticks are higher than the B-zone. This allows slack so tapers can get to b-zone hits without tearing or slitting the bags. Along this vein, during the walkthrough the should MD STRONGLY discourage the tapers from slitting the bags with a knife, or tearing them, to facilitate access to the surface of the target. It [slitting the bags] makes things easier for their squad, but causes problems for subsequent squads as the targets soak up water.

6) Assume the targets will get wet. Put at LEAST three staples in each stick. Witness the targets on the sticks, so when targets are replaced the old one CAB be completely disposed of without changing the shooting problem. [Note: two years after writing this, I realize I have no idea what I meant by the acronym "CAB". I presume I meant "CAN", and the original included a typographical error.] This will prevent water from the old target soaking the replacement target. (If the old target isn't so soaked that the target tears out of the staples, it probably doesn't need to be removed.)


... My primary concerns are safety, fairness, and shooter enjoyment. This last includes minimizing the number of reshoots because of the effects of rain on cardboard targets. I admit, this isn't going to make it easy on the setup crews.

The BOD will have the responsibility (and it will be my PRIMARY responsibility, until I'm replaced as Competition Director) during points matches to walk the stages and make sure there are no problems due to the way the stages are set up.

Unless [the Section Coordinator] objects, personally, or the MDs [Match Directors] have convincing reasons why these guidelines are not [to be]fo llowed, I or any of the BOD may request the MD to change the setup before the match can be started. The usual objections to shoot-through target arrays and illegal stages or procedures will be justification for delaying the match start. Stages which don't follow these special Rainy Season guidelines may also be required to be changed.

All the above may be regarded as "The Fine Print", but I will use them as my guideline before I allow a points match to be started during the Rainy Season.

I strongly encourage every MD to make these guidelines known to everyone on the match setup crew, to preclude delay of the match start during the Rainy Season.

Note that words and phrases included [in brackets] are additions to the original text.

In the final analysis, nobody objected to the guidelines I proposed in the last half of this essay, and I thought we enjoyed a relatively problem-free post-season period of CCS club matches.

(For the environment-specific balance of this topic, see Winter Rules: Part 1)

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