Once in awhile, despite Mr. Murphy, bad Karma, or any number of other factors, we "get it right the first time." Fortunately, that was true for a number of new ideas I incorporated into this year’s Coastal Bend Challenge and I would like to tell you about the match and the "firsts" that worked for me.

I have been heavily involved with most of our previous CBC matches but this was my first time wearing the Match Director’s hat and as you might imagine, I wanted to experiment with some of my own ideas. Breaking new ground though meant I would have to do my homework in order to avoid any problems that might arise on match day.

My goals were to provide each shooter with a safe, enjoyable, and challenging shooting experience. "Safe" needs no explanation other than to acknowledge that the SO’s carry the full weight of that responsibility and as Match Directors, it is our job to ensure that they have the necessary skills, knowledge, and support to perform this all-important task.

"Challenging" is most often associated with level of difficulty but in fact, can be achieved by requiring skillful thought as well as skillful shooting.

"Enjoyable" will vary widely from person to person but for me, an enjoyable IDPA match is one where the courses of fire adhere to the core concepts of IDPA and are designed to be short, fast, and as realistic as possible. Unfortunately, achieving this last goal turned out to be a bit more difficult than I thought.

SIDE-BY-SIDE STAGES: All previous CBC matches have had the Rulebook minimum 8 courses of fire and for many clubs, that is the maximum number of stages that can be supported with available personnel and range bays. However, in order to achieve the minimum round count for sanctioned matches, one or more of the courses of fire quite often requires the use of multiple strings.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of multiple strings so if I wanted short, fast, single-string courses of fire, I was going to have to do it with more than 8 stages. Two other factors complicated the problem; the range only has 6 suitable bays for a match such as ours and, assembling 9 or 10 Safety Officer teams from a small club membership in order to utilize open squadding was going to be nearly impossible.

The answer was to have two sets of side-by-side courses of fire using one SO team for each set. We put up vinyl vision barriers between each pair of stages to avoid visual confusion and both stages were only scored after the shooter finished the second course of fire. The SO’s briefed both during their walk-throughs and with fairly low round counts, shooters didn’t need to come to the line with their pockets full of mags or speedloaders.

The only minor problem was breaking the habit of clearing the pistol after the first stage. But, once the SO’s got in the groove, the process ran smoothly, took no more time to shoot than a multiple-string stage, and gave everyone two completely different courses of fire instead of having them shoot the same one twice. Plus, it solved the manning problem by requiring only two SO teams to run four stages and in the end, the match was comprised of 10 stages with a total round count of 127.

PULLEY BLOCK GRAVITY MOVER: This was not an original idea and actually came about after some of our club members saw a mover using this concept at a match last year in another city. But when I heard about it, I knew I wanted to see if we could build one ourselves. Fortunately, my close friend, Terry Panknin, (who must be kin to Thomas Edison,) took the challenge and together, after much trial and error with different pulleys, carriers, weights etc., we eventually had a working model.

But that wasn’t good enough for Terry, no sir. He decided we should add a second moving target with a delayed release triggered by the first target! This was accomplished by adding a third support point for the cable equal distance from each main cable tower, and then mounting a pulley horizontally as a pivot point for the cable. This resulted in an inverted "V" which made it possible for both target carriers to charge the center shooting position at about a 20 degree angle.

We used falling steel plates behind the center mass area of a target as activators for all four of the match stages with moving props and in this case, the falling plate pulled a pin which released the first target. Another line and pin combination was secured to the first carrier and the time delay for the second target release was determined by the length of this line.

Having had experience with both types of gravity-driven mover designs, it is my opinion that the pulley block and weight is by far the best method. It is much better than an inclined ramp or cable because it yields nearly constant speed, the target height is realistic and, the target remains the same height throughout its travel.

It took a good bit of testing and multiple modifications over three or four months but in the end, Terry’s ingenuity and hard work resulted in a great prop that provided us with a very challenging and realistic double mover stage.

DEDICATED MATCH WEBSITE: Obviously, not every club will have someone who can do this but the benefits of a registered domain name for a recurring annual match are substantial, especially in terms of search engine optimization. It is also a "one stop shopping" experience for potential match customers and I think it worked out extremely well. Not surprisingly, the link to the site is: www.coastalbendchallenge.com and if you’re interested, the full match booklet as well as all the match photos and scores are available there.

PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM: We have all been to matches where it was difficult to hear what was being said during the shooters’ meeting or award ceremony and I decided to see if a PA system was feasible. I didn’t want the noise of a generator so the only other available power source was from a golf cart or a vehicle. The solution was to use a car stereo amplifier, a couple outdoor speakers, and a wireless microphone. We’ve all been next to a booming car audio system so lack of volume was not an issue and the ability to move about freely thanks to the wireless microphone really made for a great little portable PA system. Highly recommended.

CATERING SPONSORSHIP: Our club has used the same caterer for most of our annual IDPA and Carbine matches and it has always been good Texas barbeque, but this year I wanted to investigate the possibility of trying something different.

On Sundays after our local matches we frequently go to one of a handful of local restaurants for a late lunch and Jason’s Deli is a favorite for many of us. Coincidentally, I had met one of the owners, Pat O’Boyle, through a coworker of mine and decided to ask him about catering and possibly being a sponsor for the Coastal Bend Challenge. Long story short, not only does Jason’s have a large catering business, but the franchise is also very enthusiastic about supporting the community and generously offered to give us a large discount as a sponsorship. My wife, Jennifer, volunteered as our Catering Coordinator and after picking up the meals, tea, and coolers at the restaurant on match day, she had high praise for the Jason’s employees who were extremely helpful. Best of all, the boxed lunches were excellent.

There were a few other "firsts" for this match including trying a different shirt vendor, providing the SO’s and Staff with polo shirts instead of the usual T-shirts, and a new match booklet layout. These too worked out well and I was very happy with the end products.

So, for all you future Match Directors, don’t be shy about thinking "outside the box" and trying new ideas at your local matches. Who knows, you may be fortunate enough to get it right the first time as well.