JCTS is pleased to be one of the hosts of the Zone 4 Skeet Championship in its first year as a simultaneous, multiple-location iShoot, August 11 - 13, 2017
Steve Johnstone, President of the Florida Skeet Association, explains the operation of Zone 4's first iShoot and how you can follow event competition.
Hello Zone 4 Shooters,
As promised, I have put together Part Two of my newsletter to talk a bit about execution of our Zone 4 Championship. It is hard to believe that the shoot is a little over a month away. Pre-squadding has been incredible, and I thank you all for your support of this event. We are currently sitting at 253 registered participants for the shoot, which is awesome. But we can always do better; please keep spreading the word and pushing your friends to register and attend.
Current status of registered shooters per site:
Ft Rucker - 30
Jacksonville - 70
South River - 40
Ft Bragg - 57
Memphis - 10
Eagle - 32
Puerto Rico - 14
First, we all know that life sometimes gets in the way of shooting, and we normally lose a few people. All I ask is that if you have registered and find you cannot make it, please let us know. We don’t want to hire any more referees than we need, or arrange for meals for people who end up not being able to make it. I ask that you contact the club point of contact where you registered to attend, or as a last resort, notify me to let us know.
So, the execution of the shoot during the weekend will be pretty much the same as any traditional shoot. We will follow the published program as usual, with the shooting order as laid out in the program. The biggest question I have had about the iShoot format is how shoot-offs are conducted, so I will focus the remainder of this update to addressing that question.
Hopefully, it is obvious that given the seven locations, shoot-offs will not be shoulder-to-shoulder. In addition, we have three clubs in the Central Time Zone with the remainder in the Eastern Time Zone. Shoot-offs will begin once the last gun of the day is finished, no matter which time zone you are in. So, shoot-offs will begin in the Eastern Time Zone approximately an hour before the Central Zone shoot-offs start.
Shoot-offs are split up by club into three initial groups for each gun: those shooting off for CH/RU/3rd, those shooting off for Class, and those shooting off for Concurrents. Shoot-offs are shot concurrently, which means, if a shooter is in more than one shoot-off for a particular gun, they only have to shoot once for any of those shoot-offs. Initially, shoot-offs will continue until the shooter misses twice or until they complete two boxes, whichever comes first. If any shoot-offs require more than two boxes those subsequent boxes will be added automatically by the overall shoot administrator. Historically, two misses generally breaks all ties. So once the Eastern Time Zone clubs are finished with shoot-offs, they can go ahead and eat dinner while the Central time zone is completing shoot-offs. All shoot-offs will likely be complete before dinner is finished, but you can use your smart-phone to follow the shoot-offs at http://ishoot.zone4skeet.info/ishoot/ .
The scores for the entire Zone shoot will be posted at each club, or available on a scrolling score board, so you will be able to track events as they unfold and as scores are uploaded from each location. I know this will all be new for a lot of people, but it is also new for us as well. This iShoot format has been very successful in Zone 6, so all I ask is that you show up with an open mind and exercise a little patience for our first go. I am confident things will go well. The one thing that strikes me about this shoot-off format is that it will go quicker and be more efficient to get done and get off to the party.
As is always the case, if you still have questions or concerns, please reach out and we will do our best to get them answered or resolved. I look forward to seeing you all at the shoot (or at least your scores)!
Steve Johnstone
Florida Skeet Association