Windy City Drill Competition Review

Pros:      

• Sound system was hooked up, and had no difficulties
• Host was polite, and working hard to meet everyone’s demands      
• Water bottles provided
• Great place for competition
• Stayed on schedule
• Food provided afterwards

Cons:

• Not a very random way to draw for time slots, especially for tandems
• Only two judges
• Drop penalty 50 points; discourages “street” moves at a street comp
• One judge gave mostly perfect scores, suggesting lack of experience
• Switched head judge with two solos remaining
• One competitor did not receive a “military flavor” score
• Schedule not complete until day before competition
• Judges taking off for uniform “violations” in a street competition
• General competition information not certain until two weeks before competition; location, cost, etc.
• No timer
• Rifles not checked for weight
• Judges did not watch all of routines
• Mistakes on scoresheets not corrected
• Official scores not kept
• While not “wrong”, better scoresheets could have been selected than the National’s scoresheet

Rating
4/10. Definitely not the best competition, but as this was its first year, we expect the quality to improve drastically in the next year. Would recommend giving this competition another chance, the quality of the competitors was above average.


Sources: Isaac Mackin and Jonathan Ludwig; competitors at the Windy City Drill Competition.