By-Pas Motor State The Motor State Super Sporting Prelim has grown into somewhat of a legend in its own right with many shooters eager for the opportunity to shoot super long targets and others shying away in order to keep their confidence intact for the main event. It’s easy to have your ego badly bruised when winning scores have historically ranged as low as the high 50’s! For this event all the targets thrown are either singles or report pairs and the emphasis is on distance, with the average target being 60 to 65 yards. This year AA shooter Jeff Mitchell took the prelim HOA with an 81, with M1 going to Canadian Matt Vianello. The belt buckles awarded to the 1st and 2nd place winners of each class and concurrents in the Motor State Super Sporting event are truly something the winners can be proud of. The Detroit Gun Club has been around since 1954, starting out as a private trap facility, then leaning more through the years towards skeet and eventually evolving into a first rate skeet and sporting clays venue in the early 90’s. Known as a high volume club, Behnke says, “We throw more registered targets in the combination of skeet and sporting clays than anybody. We’re really proud of that, being that we only have 60 acres of property to work with”. Scotty says that last year alone DGC threw 2.5 million targets, registered and non-registered. That’s a lot by anyone’s standards and among the highest in the country. He made the most of the 60 acre grounds by designing the sporting clays layout in a loop along the edges of the property and positioning each stand to shoot towards the middle. The entire path is paved, and a shuttle is provided on Motor State weekend to move shooters from station 13, past the skeet and trap fields and the clubhouse to station 1. Unlike many public shooting facilities, DGC is a full service shotgun-only club complete with pullers, a kitchen and bar, gun cleaning and storage areas as well as a small pro shop. Flat screen TV’s are hung on three walls, making for an inviting clubhouse atmosphere. For the well heeled shooter and the casual window shoppers alike, there are a handful of high end scatterguns on the wall, some with price tags that might make an oil baron do a double take. Although DGC doesn’t sell guns per se, members display their guns for sale there, making for some classy wall dressing. Behnke runs this high quality operation with military precision and augments his normal staff of around 15 employees to about 30 on With 3 traps on each of 13 stations, there’s a lot of behind the scenes target loading and maintenance going on to keep the games on track. Using a combination of LaPorte and ProMatic traps, the typical DGC station gives the shooters two report pairs off of traps 1 and 2 and two true pairs off of traps 2 and 3. It’s very easy to walk away from any given station shaking your head in frustration because a lack of focus kept you committing to memory the target line of trap 3, causing a costly mistake. I’ve heard many experienced shooters say it’s a bit more of a mind game at DGC because of the three trap set up, and I tend to agree. Scotty uses all the techniques in a good target setter’s bag of tricks, including varying speeds, differing target lines and target types. Case in point: Saturday’s station 1 had two report pairs and one true pair for a total of 6 birds. The report was a left to right quartering away target with a lot of spring coming off of a 50 foot lift showing some belly, followed by a right to left trap-like target starting about 50 feet in front of the stand and quartering away at about a 45 degree angle to the ground, moderately fast. The true pair was the trap-like target and a 60mm starting from a trap set about 25 feet to the shooter’s right and screaming away to the left at about 6 feet off the ground. The author had trouble with the mini and dropped it to take a 5 on this one. Another testy target presentation on Saturday was station 9, with two report pairs -- a moderately fast right to left rabbit about 35 yards away followed by a very fast 50 yard left to right crosser coming off of a raised platform and showing only edge. This was followed by two true pairs, the fast crosser and a high left to right looper showing lots of belly. As is normal at a quality club, target diversity was the order of the day. Although the weather was pleasant, if breezy, most of the day Saturday with temps in the mid 60’s, around 4pm the wind picked up considerably and the skies opened, drenching the 2:30 pm flight. This is Michigan after all, and we have a saying here that goes something like, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait 15 minutes,” and this old adage prove true Saturday. Just as the shooters were returning to the clubhouse the rain stopped and the sun popped out again. That’s Sunday’s weather was drier than the day before but windier. With temps in the low to mid 50’s and high winds, there was a chill in the air. The wind played havoc with Sunday’s targets, but like Senior Super Veteran Richard Cote said, “It blew some away and it blew some back towards you”. It’s all in the game of sporting clays. 92’s were shot by Deeann Massey and Matt Houtteman to give them both 181 for the main event. A dramatic shoot off was in order which Houtteman won, giving him his first ever major event win. Speaking to Matt’s dad Bob after the award ceremony, he told me that Matt was very emotional after the shoot off and deservingly so. The As for the other scores, Brian Hornacek followed Saturday’s 90 with a great 89 on Sunday to take AA1 with a 179. A class winner was Mark Abdo with a 167, with Canadian Peter Chiefari taking B class with a 165. Ray Garrow shot a strong 156 to take C class and D class shooter Arnold Henning won his class with a 153. Dan Mustonen bested 11 other E class shooters to take his class with a 146. The 2008 By*Pas Motor State is now history, but this annual shoot is likely to become even better in the coming years with the strong involvement of its new sponsors. Springtime in Michigan to me will always mean Detroit Gun Club and the By*Pas Motor State, dicey weather and all.
Article by Dana Farrell
If Detroit Gun Club manager Scotty Behnke has learned anything in his 30 some odd years of working in the gun club business, it’s how to throw a good sporting clays tournament, as he proved again when he hosted this year’s By*Pas Motor State. This annual event is sponsored by namesake By*Pas, a cleaning product company owned by Michigan shooters Joe and Jason Huf, and brand new sponsor Joe Giacalone of GCH Machinery. Detroit Gun Club treated shooters from several states and visiting Canadians to a 100 bird Super Sporting Prelim on Friday followed by the 200 target main event shot on Saturday and Sunday. This year the shoot, with its prelim, side games and main event was spiced up further with a Handicap 500 Race held on Sunday evening. This special feature, sponsored by 2008 Team USA member Greg Larson and Detroit Gun Club, pitted Saturday’s highest scorers from each class in a handicapped 50 bird shoot off on the 5 stand course with $300 going to the champion and $200 to the runner up.
