Michel Starts 2010 Hot

Team SIG Sauer’s Max Michel continued his dominating start to 2010 by winning the Open Division in the U.S. Practical Shooting Association’s (USPSA) Area 6 Handgun Championship recently in Covington, Ga. The performance gave Michel a record seventh consecutive win at the match.

In all, 12 Grand Master, and 15 Master level shooters, competed in the Area 6 Open division, making Michel’s win even more impressive.

“With K.C. Eusebio and Chris Tilley in the match, and more than 100 shooters total (in the open division), the Area 6 match was beginning to look like a match on par with the USPSA Nationals, said Michel. “The difficulty of the stages in this match, along with the talent I’d face, gave me my best opportunity to practice my Open division shooting before the Nationals later this year, and I wasn’t going to pass that up.”

Michel finished the match with a score of 1191.4037, more than 27 points ahead of second place Eusebio of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, who posted 1163.8470. Team SVI shooter Chris Tilley, the 2007 National Open Champion, finished third.

On the women’s side of the Open division, Jessie Abbate, who is rumored to be ready to announce a new sponsor, topped the field, finishing 18th overall in her first Open match. Top Junior honors went to Nicholas Neel, while Teddy Llasos won high Senior. Super Senior was won by Robert Keller.

For Michel, the Area 6 marked the continuation to what has already been an extremely successful 2010 season. Michel began this year’s campaign by taking his third consecutive title in the Florida Open Pistol Tournament, one of the first matches of the year.

From there, it was on to Wichita Falls, Texas, where Michel won his fifth consecutive Double Tap Championship. Hosted by the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC), Michel bested nearly 350 contestants to take this year’s honors.

“Winning the Double Tap Championship this year after missing the 2009 match is great,” Michel said. “The competition is first-class, and this event draws the best in talent, as proven by the large number of competitors this year.”

Michel finally cooled by a fraction, coming in second overall behind K.C. Eusebio at the U.S. National Steel Championship in Titusville, Fla. However, along the way, Michel broke two records, an 11.11 seconds on stage “Outer Limits” and a smoking 9.29 seconds on stage “Pendulum.” Going into “Outer Limits,” Michel trailed Eusebio by two seconds, ultimately coming .01-second short after his blistering run. For the event, both Michel and Eusebio shattered the previous open division match record of 80.09, with Michel posting a 78.02 behind Eusebio’s new record of 78.01.

“The competition was strong this year,” Michel said. “To enter the last stage with two seconds behind Eusebio and to come back to place second by .01 seconds is not an easy feat to do, but when you are using a gun like a SIG, it sure does help.”

Max Michel first gained prominence in the competitive shooting arena with five USPSA National Championships beginning in 2004, along with three World Speed Shooting Championships in 2005, 2007 and 2009. From 1999 to 2009, Michel was a top competitor for the vaunted U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit.

Posted on 4/20/2010