The 2012 Spring Gamaliel Cup at Nashville Gun Club

SHOOTREPORT
1
SPRING
DANA FARRELL REPORTS FROM THE NASHVILLE GUN CLUB
GAMALIEL CUP
T
he 8th Annual Spring
Gamaliel Cup took place
April 19-22 at the Nashville
Gun Club, located on the grounds
of the Tennessee Clay Target
Complex in Nashville, Tennessee.
Sitting on the banks of the scenic
Cumberland river, the NGC is
billed as the largest gun club in the
State of Tennessee and has been
around in one form or another
since 1876. Occupying a wide
swath of flood plain that was once a
prison farm, its facilities include
two sporting clays courses, a
covered 5-Stand, ten skeet fields
and thirteen trap fields. In addition
to sporting clays, the facility is
home to registered trap and skeet
events.
The Spring Cup is the first half
of a popular brace of events, the
second of which is the Fall
Gamaliel Cup, historically held in
September at Rockcastle, which
this year will be held for the first
time in Nashville.
The Spring Cup this year
offered a total of 900 registered
targets over the course of four
days, including a 200 bird Main
Event, 100 bird Prelim and 100
bird FITASC. Also on the roster
were three 50 bird 5-Stand events,
a 50 bird Super Sporting, Pump
and Side-by-Side events, plus the
usual small gauge affairs.
The Gamaliel Cup is the
signature event of Gamaliel
Shooting Supply, so named for its
home base of Gamaliel, Kentucky.
A remarkable example of the
‘American Dream’, the company’s
roots date back to humble
beginnings in the 1960s when
President and founder, Garon
Pare, sold ammo out of the trunk
of his car to offset his trapshooting
expenses. Now run by Garon’s
eldest son, Vice President and
General Manager, Geoff Pare, the
company is a staunch supporter of
all clay target sports – maybe most
importantly the 4H, Aim and SCTP
GEOFF PARE (L) PRESENTS THE
CUP TO WENDELL CHERRY.
SHOOTREPORT
1
youth programs. A one-stopshopping depot of all things
shooting related, their business
model has grown to include a
burgeoning mail order business
and on line store along with their
brick and mortar retail store. Their
crew travels to over a dozen
shooting events throughout the
season, selling supplies and ammo
from a semi-truck trailer.
Gamaliel management and
Nashville Gun Club have their
routines down pat from years of
experience of holding the Cup and
know what works well and what
doesn’t. In a break from previous
years’ programs, there was no
Saturday dinner this year and
instead replaced with
complimentary lunches, both
Saturday and Sunday, which
seemed to suit the shooters just
fine. Remington sponsored the
free ice cream stand, very popular
in years past, but as luck would
have it the weather this year was
on the cool side so it unfortunately
saw very little play. Ugrades had
been made to the Green course
path to fight the persistent mud
problem – and returning shooters
claimed it was much improved, but
more work remains to be done to
alleviate the situation for a three
station stretch or so. The Gold
course was dry and nicely paved
and features some attractively
designed raised shooting
platforms.
Green. Will Fennell, Gary Pyron
and Bill McGuire all shot 98s on
the Gold course. Shooters then
relaxed and socialized during a
social hour from 5pm-6pm and
enjoyed free beer, wine and hors
d’oeuvres, compliments of Clay
Talk USA, a new on line shooting
forum headed up by Grayson Pare,
grandson of Gamaliel founder,
Garon Pare.
WILL FENNELL, KEVIN DeMICHIEL AND JEFF VICK WERE TIED ON 98 AND
SHOT-OFF FOR PRELIM HONORS.
friendly shoot-off venue.
Cunningham and Jim Moses of
Promatic trucked in sixty
machines to supplement NGC’s
inventory of traps and provided
their usual expert technical
support. Cunningham, who has set
the Fall Cup a couple of times at
Rockcastle, is scheduled to be the
chief target setter for this year’s
Fall Cup when it is played out in
Nashville for the first time.
The 18 station Prelim event
could be shot either Thursday or
Friday. Jeff Vick, Will Fennell and
Kevin DeMichiel tied on 98 for the
top slot. “The targets weren’t super
challenging – the challenge was
the 18 stations. It wears people
down – it just kept going and
going,” said Fennell. DeMichiel
held similar sentiments, saying,
“I thought the targets were great.
None of them were hard, it was
just staying focused through 18
stations and breaking every target
– that’s a whole different game in
Entertaining
Targets
All targets this year were set by
Promatic’s Heyward Cunningham
– with the exception of the 5-Stand,
which was taken on by Ed Prechel
of Top Gun Shooting Sports.
Prechel also brought a Make-ABreak layout which kept the
shooters entertained throughout
the weekend and provided a crowd
CLAYSHOOTINGUSA
RETIRED TENNESSEE SENATOR DOUG
JACKSON AND SIDEKICK MILO.
Saturday Evening
itself. It was a marathon.” A shootoff was held Saturday evening on
the Make-A-Break layout and
DeMichiel walked away with the
Prelim HOA title, leaving Vick M1
and Fennell M2. Wendell Cherry
was close behind with a 97 for M3.
PRELIMINARY
CH
M1
AA1
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
LADY
SUB JR
JR
VET
SUP VET
SR SUP VET
KEVIN DE MICHIEL
JEFF VICK
DONALD HASSLER
FREDERICK FOSTER
MARTY MOORE
RICH ISON
DAVID HIPP
JAKE WALLACE
JANET McDOUGALL
COLTON ANDERSON
MICHAEL EVERSON
DONALD HASSLER
BOB DAVIS
RONALD SHAFER
98
98
95
91
92
82
81
78
88
93
92
95
92
93
Weather turned from
beautifully sunny skies on
Thursday and Friday to overcast
with intermittent showers on
Saturday for the first half of the
Main. Temperatures were cool –
and many shooters doffed wool
hats and scarves to stay
comfortable. Shooters were
divided between the two courses –
the partially wooded Green and
more open Gold course. At the end
of Saturday, Wendell Cherry had
turned in a stunning 99 on the
Green course, followed closely by
Brandon Powell’s 98, also on
Platinum event sponsors Blaser
and Caesar Guerini each donated a
shotgun, won by shoot-off on the
Make-A-Break layout in crowdpleasing fashion on Saturday
evening. For a shot at the Blaser, a
lucky number between zero and
nine was randomly drawn and all
shooters names whose Saturday
Main Event score ended in that
number were put into a hat and 15
were drawn – along with one lucky
name drawn from those who demo’d
the gun. Norbert Haussmann,
Blaser-USA CEO, said, “I think this
is our fourth year doing this – we
work with Geoff very well and he’s
also a dealer of ours. He makes us
NORBERT HAUSSMANN OF
BLASER USA.
SHOOTREPORT
1
KEVIN DeMICHIEL
ASHLEIGH HAFLEY WALKED AWAY WITH THE BLASER F3 PRIZE, SHOWN
HERE WITH RICK ARCHER, CO-FOUNDER OF THE GAMALIEL CUP, JANET
McDOUGALL AND GEOFF PARE. (PHOTO CREDIT: GRAYSON PARE.)
feel very at home
and we like to
support the
shoot.” Ashleigh
Hafley was the
last person
standing when
the smoke
cleared. Her
Bethel University
team-mates
cheered her on as
she became the proud owner of a
new F3. “It was a tough shoot-off
after a long day and it was nice to
have my team there supporting
me,” she later said.
Similarly, all shooters who ran
the predetermined eight bird
‘secret’ Caesar Guerini station
were pooled and the lucky ones
were drawn along with a randomly
chosen demo customer to shootoff for a Guerini Summit Sporting.
Todd Simmons battled his way
through the crowd of competitors,
including two-time National
Champion Robbie Purser, and
walked away with the spoils after
handily beating out the field. The
crowd cheered the smiling
Simmons, chanting ‘Tonto, Tonto!’
as he triumphantly strode down
the steps of the shooting riser,
shaking hands with his
congratulatory friends and fans.
This was shooting entertainment
at its best.
TODD SIMMONS, PROUD WINNER
OF A GUERINI SUMMIT SPORTING,
FRAMED BY GAMALIEL SHOOTING
SUPPLIES’ GEOFF PARE (L) AND TOM
SMITH (R) OF CAESAR GUERINI.
on three Parcours and finishing up
by running Parcour 1, his final stop
on the way to a blistering score of
97. When he broke his last pair he
gave a victorious fist pump and was
congratulated by his squad mates.
It was an impressive performance
from a consummate professional –
and a pleasure to witness first
hand. When asked his strategy, he
said he concentrated on breaking
every one of the singles, which
provided a little ‘breathing room’ if
he missed the odd target in the
pairs. Good advice – and a plan that
worked effectively for him.
Among side event winners, Bill
McGuire (50/50) won Thursday’s
(PHOTO CREDIT: GRAYSON PARE.)
FITASC
The 100 bird FITASC event was
shot over four old-style Parcours
and featured an exceptionally
diverse set of targets. Scheduling
options allowed it to be shot all in
one day either Thursday or
Friday, or broken up into two 50
bird sets over Saturday and
Sunday. The wind was somewhat
of a concern, especially on Sunday,
as the pegs were situated in the
wide open part of the property.
Kentucky shooter, Tina Jewell, was
one of only ten shooters to run a
Parcour, taking high Lady honors
and AA with her smoking score of
90. Master class Lady, Janet
McDougall, was close behind on
89. Georgian Kevin DeMichiel
absolutely shined, turning in 24s
KENTUCKIANS TINA AND TIM
JEWELL ARE ALL SMILES.
MAIN 5-STAND
CH
M1
AA1
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
LADY
SUB JR
JR
VET
SUP VET
SR SUP VET
BRANDON POWELL
JOEY BOLTON
JEFFREY BLEIL
DAVID CRAVEN
ZACH EDGIN
DONALD ENOCHS
JOSH GIBBS
JAKE WALLACE
WANDA YORK HUTCHISON
COLTON ANDERSON
MICHAEL EVERSON
RICK GJESTVANG
BOB DAVIS
DAVID BRANHAM
50
49
47
43
42
44
38
38
37
48
48
48
41
26
FITASC
CH
M1
AA1
A1
B1
C1
D1
LADY
JR
VET
SUP VET
KEVIN DE MICHIEL
WENDELL CHERRY
TINA JEWELL
DAMIEN DA COSTA
DAVID WILSON
MIKE PHILLIPS
JOSH GIBBS
TINA JEWELL
WILL HINTON
MARK HALL
RONALD SHAFER
97
94
90
84
77
86
70
90
92
92
89
PARCOUR 4.
CLAYSHOOTINGUSA
SHOOTREPORT
5-Stand, John Terry (48/50) took
Friday’s 5-Stand, Brandon Powell
(50/50) won the Main 5-Stand and
Wendell Cherry won the Super
Sporting (50/50). Small gauge
honors went to Gary Farmer (.410
– 48), Mike Benton (20g – 48), Jeff
Vick (28g – 49) and Brian Fleming
(12g – 50). Jimmy Baker won the
Side-by-Side (48).
Final Day
Sunday saw both Bill McGuire and
Brandon Powell turn in scores of 97
leaving them tied for second place,
two birds behind Wendell Cherry
who had posted a 98 on the Gold
course for a total of 197/200
clinching the $2,500 HOA purse. It
proved to be another stellar outing
for the Champion and his fourth
Gamaliel Cup Main Event HOA
win.
BRANDON
POWELL (L)
AND BILL
McGUIRE
SHOT-OFF
FOR MAIN
EVENT RU.
McGuire and Powell shot-off for runner-up on
the 5-Stand layout, with McGuire winning the coin
toss and choosing to shoot first. Powell watched
over his shoulder and when it was his turn to
shoot, turned up the heat and topped the reigning
National Champion by a target, taking runner-up
and bumping McGuire to M1.
GAMALIEL CUP
CH
RU
M1
M2
M3
AA1
AA2
AA3
A1
A2
A3
B1
B2
B3
C1
C2
C3
D1
D2
D3
E1
E2
E3
LADY
SUB JR
JR
VET
SUP VET
SR SUP VET
WENDELL CHERRY
BRANDON POWELL
BILL McGUIRE
WILL FENNELL
GARY PYRON
PETE BRYANT
JEFFREY BLEIL
WAYNE NORTON
NICHOLAS SWAGGERTY
STEPHEN SPENCER
PAOLO PERITI
MARTY MOORE
WILLIAM TILL
DAVID GREEN
RICH ISON
KIERNAN SHEA
MATTHEW PERKINS
BRET BOATRIGHT
BRAD BARKER
ANDREW SELLIN
JAKE WALLACE
DAVID HARRELL
JOEY HILL
ASHLEIGH HAFLEY
WILL HINTON
MATT FISHER
BOB SELF
JAMES BOWERS
RONALD SHAFER
197
195
195
191
190
178
177
177
178
172
172
174
173
169
169
168
166
166
163
161
156
140
125
177
186
187
186
186
171
SHOOT-OFFS WERE WATCHED BY MANY –
WHO SAID THIS IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT?
Wendell Cherry reflected on the weekend’s
targets and his competitive mindset in a break
before the award ceremony on Sunday, “The
Green course was the harder – there were four
difficult stations that you had to shoot well. I
thought the Gold course was a little softer. During
Sunday we had some wind that added to the level
of difficulty. Any time scores are high, you’ve got
to be on your game. I shot 99 (Saturday) and 98
(Sunday) but only won by two! Every target was
critical – miss one and the pressure’s on – it makes
the easy targets harder.”
Pressure or not, Cherry demonstrated once
again his penchant for mental toughness and
showed why he’s a constant threat on the sporting
clays circuit. Based on his string of wins so far this
season, he continues to be one of the most
consistent winners in the National arena. It will be
interesting to watch how the rest of the season
plays out for the man from Tennessee. ■