Racaza Takes Top Spot in Both Pistol Divisions
Breaks World Record on Roundabout stage at Smith & Wesson Steel Series Northeast Championship
Old Bridge, New Jersey – -(AmmoLand.com)- World Class shooter “JJ” Racaza, sponsored by both Limcat Custom and Montana Gold Bullets, captured the top awards in both the Open Division and the Iron Sight Division in the 2009 Smith & Wesson Steel Series Northeast Championship held on June 5th, 6th and 7th at the Old Bridge Rifle and Pistol Club’s outdoor facilities, located in Old Bridge, New Jersey. Racaza’s combined score of 71.10 seconds for the entire event included a score of 7.93 seconds on the “Roundabout” stage, sponsored by FNH USA, and thus broke the standing World Record of 8.35 seconds for this stage.
Almost as amazing was his time of 10.08 to tie the World record on “Showdown.” All of these exceptional times were recorded using timers supplied by CED, the official timers of World Class Steel.
This year’s championship, also known by its long-standing original name of “Speed on Steel,” consisted of seven static steel stages. The stage names, with sponsoring firms, were Roundabout, FNH USA; Zig-Zag, Glock; Smoke and Hope, Beretta USA; Five-to-Go, Safariland; Showdown, Springfield, Inc; Speed Option, ACDelco/Sport Shooters Training; and Accelerator, Smith & Wesson.
The Championship sponsor was Smith & Wesson, with Beretta USA, STI International and Mike Gibson being the match sponsors for the weekend event. Schuemann Barrels, a returning sponsor, provided luncheon for the shooters and match staff.
On Saturday morning, the second session day of the match, I had a chance to talk to JJ as he was signing in at the Registration Desk, sponsored by Caspian, Inc, and told him that we were glad to see him able to shoot the match considering his very hectic work schedule. JJ stated that, “I didn’t know until a few days ago if I could make the match and I wasn’t able to get in as much range time as I would have liked but I feel really good today.” And what a day he had! At the end of the day he and his squad even had time to take in a few of the side matches that were sponsored by Mike Gibson Manufacturing and by Otis Technologies, Inc. His squad, a squad consisting of a group of law enforcement officers who regularly compete at World Class Steel events, had become a cheering section for JJ throughout the day.
Equaling Racaza’s feat of taking both division titles was Team Smith & Wesson member Dave Olhasso, making it to the top spot in both Open Revolver and Iron Sight Revolver. Dave’s showing in Revolver was truly amazing in that he has been competing with a revolver only for the last few seasons.
The Statistics Trailer, again sponsored by Starline Brass, was busy every afternoon scoring the match using The World Class Steel Scorer program. Top placers in the remaining divisions were Chuck Guzenski in Compact, Myron Pollard in Rimfire Iron Pistol and Rich LaBrocca in Open Rimfire.
Thanks to the continued support of many generous and caring commercial organizations in the shooting-sports industry, we were able to exceed the dollar value of last year’s prize table. This year’s event included 20 firearms among the more than $35,000 in prize merchandise awarded in the shooters random drawing raffle. In excess of $4,000 in cash prizes were awarded to division winners based on their order of finish using the Lewis System.
The staff at World Class Steel congratulate all the winners of the championship and wish to thank all the sponsors who continued to help make this year’s event the top 2009 steel match on the East Coast.
More about this match can be found at www.WorldClassSteel.com.