15APR - The American Trigger Sports Network will air their coverage of the Pirates of Texas Carbine Championship on Friday, June 1st at 8pm CDT. The program will be shown on DirecTV channel 608 (PRST) and Dish Network channel 240 (HUNT) as well as on their website at ATSN.TV.

02MAR - You can view the photos taken by the American Trigger Sports Network folks at this link:

26FEB - Here are some comments we received via email or posts on our club forum.

"Great match! Thank you all for the hard work and putting it on! Thoroughly enjoyed it!"

"I also will say GREAT match. THANKS to all the ROs, Helpers and people that help with putting on and running the match. I shot two guns today and the stages were running well and I only had one stage where they had to come and look for me. Also thanks to Mike and KB for all their HARD work."

"Thanks for the great match! The stages moved fast and were challenging. It was great to see everyone again. The stage RO's, the props/set up, and the directors were all impressive. We are glad we were able to make it and left looking forward to the next one."

"This group of guys put on one of the best matches I have ever attended. What was so impressive to me was the SO's patience and how well they kept the thing moving. Nightmare and Maytag's leadership style was present at each stage. They remembered this is a game and you are supposed to have fun and they did their best to make that happen. I like matches where safety comes first and fun rules. They pulled this off. I know these guys gave it their best and it showed...bravo"

"Ohh thaaaaaaank you for hosting the carbine match. The stages were great! I gotta be honest. I attended both carbine matches and in my opinion, this match was way better. I like this one better not because of the awesome weather but because this was more of a pure shooting game. No "BS" stages like hidden targets, "who was the most flexible stage". I have suggestion for you guys. If you have the energy, maybe you can host the Pirate's match twice a year!"

"Just wanted to thank you and your crew for the warm hospitality and welcome. We enjoyed the shoot and found it to be very professional. All of the shooters were very happy to be a part of the whole event. We look forward to bringing more of your shoots to our viewers in the future. Again, many thanks."

Rose-Marie
Producer
American Trigger Sports Network Television

24FEB - It has taken a few days to go through the nearly 2000 photos shot by our two photographers but I finally culled the list down do a manageable number. Then, each of those got a little Photoshop treatment and finally, they were put into a Web gallery..<click here>. (You can also access the gallery from the PIX & VIDS menu above.)

The American Trigger Sports Network folks have already posted our match on their website and they took quite a few photos themselves which can be seen in the "Pirates of Texas" section on the main page. (scroll down until you see the "Pirates" header.) We will put a post here when we learn the date that the ATSN film footage of the match will be available on the Pursuit Channel, too.

POST MATCH REMARKS - The first Pirates of Texas Carbine Championship is history and in spite of the confusion with the other guys' match the previous weekend, Texas Carbine's first big event was still a huge success. By the time shooting started, 92 folks had signed up for the match although one gentleman had to cancel at the last minute due to emergency knee surgery. When it was all said and done, 88 competitors shot the match, 12 of whom did so with two guns which brought the total shooter count to 100.

Unfortunately, we did have a scores issue and today, after spending more than a few hours trying to figure out what went wrong with the scores worksheet, Nightmare finally found the problem but, when corrected, several of the scores had changed because the worksheet error had caused some data to be switched with others. So, rather than take a chance that there were no other errors, he and his lovely wife spent the rest of the day sorting the score sheets in alphabetical order and then double-checking all the scores. Along the way, a few math and entry errors were found which caused the order of finish to be different for some of the classes than we stated after the match.

Due to the corrected order of finish in each Division, some awards were given out to the wrong people and we hope to correct this but to do that, we have to retrieve the original posted scores from the range so we'll do that tomorrow and get the corrected list out as soon as we can. Once we do, we will ensure that the corrected winners receive their trophies.

We sincerely apologize for the long delay due to the scores problem and rest assured, we will be better prepared for this type of problem at future Pirates matches.

The class act award, (if we had one,) would be shared by Chris McGowan and Jerry Miculek. Chris ran afoul of a rule that conflicted with a rule in another shooting sport he participates in and suffered a match DQ on his last stage. Chris stayed at the range and was one of the many who went the extra mile to help tear down the stages and stow the props. And even though Jerry Miculek is a world-famous shooter, at each stage he was always one of the first to grab a string of pasters and jumped in with the rest of us to help tear down and stow the gear. Definitely first-class individuals, our hats are off to both of you.

We experienced another first during this match with the visit from the folks at the American Trigger Sports Network who came down from Houston to spend the day filming and interviewing the staff and a large number of shooters. All five members of the ATSN crew were extremely friendly, gracious, and clearly wanted to promote the broad subject of all the shooting sports. We thoroughly enjoyed talking with them and Nightmare even got a ride in the helicopter! So, if you were one of those who was filmed or interviewed and are wondering when you might get to see yourself on television, you can keep an eye on their website at ATSN.TV and we will also put a post on the Texas Carbine website when they let us know the date of the program. We certainly appreciated their visit and were especially grateful for their help promoting Texas Carbine in particular and the shootings sports in general.

Even though we had a few hiccups during the day, virtually every member of the staff relayed to Nightmare and I that they had all received compliment after compliment from the shooters. So, we must have done a few things right I guess and we are obviously very happy to receive such glowing comments.

Finally, we want to again thank each and every one of our volunteer staff members for the time and hard work they gave to this match and of course, thanks to all those who took a chance on our fledgling club and signed up to shoot the first Pirates of Texas Carbine Championship.

Most sincerely,

Maytag, Nightmare & Spider