Rio Salado in Mesa, Arizona, is known for putting on exemplary USPSA matches. The 37th annual Desert Classic, USPSA Area 2, lives up to that statement and most will agree that match director Jim Adame and his team always find a way to raise the bar. Adame gives much credit for the success of the November 2024 match to the stage crews, who designed and brought to life a variety of fun and unique props.
Separate from stages, last year’s match boasted a $300,000 awards lineup on the prize table.
The USPSA Area 2 Desert Classic theme for 2024 was Miami Vice, the mid-1980s TV series featuring undercover detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs. A highlight of the match was the appearance of actor and competitive shooter Jim Zubeina, known as “Practical Shooting Royalty,” who played hitman Ludovici Armstrong in the third episode. He was the Area 2 guest of honor and presented awards to the winners on the Sunday afternoon following the match.
Mr. Zubiena’s appearance was special, because he is a longtime practical shooter, having won many awards in his day. Regarding Miami Vice, he was the firearms instructor on the show. In the episode “The Hit List,” his character used the close-quarter shooting technique known as the Mozambique Drill, or the “two to the body, one to the head” shot. The scene was a hit and is remembered to this day. At the Area 2 match, two of the 15 stages used the Mozambique Drill.
Robert Lange designed and laid out the digital matchbook. He gathered pictures from the Miami Vice TV series and interlaced them with range facility and competitor schedules, making the book informative, easy and fun.
The match, held the second week of November, showcased unique Miami Vice-themed stages, including Stage 1, “The Hit List,” sponsored by C-More Systems, ERGO and JP Enterprises. The starting position was standing next to a BMW automobile, handgun loaded and holstered, and on audible start signal, engaging targets from within the shooting areas. Each target array consisted of two targets. Scoring was the best two hits per target on each lower target and the best one hit per target on each upper target—Mozambique.
Fun fact—in Miami Vice, Mr. Zubiena’s character liked eating sprinkled donuts, so at Stage 1, management arranged for fresh sprinkled donuts to be brought in by the box.
Stage 3, “Prodigal Son,” was sponsored by Dillon Precision. This stage had the largest crew-built prop at the match. The shooting area consisted of a cutout of the Scarab speedboat and a wooden boat dock. The shooter’s start position was sitting in the cutout speedboat with hands on knees. On the audible start signal, the shooter proceeded to the elevated wooden dock and engaged targets on a back-and-forth course through the dock.
Stage 4, “Grab the Cash,” was sponsored by Khar Arms and Limcat Customs. The shooter started with feet touching the start stick and hands flat on marks. The firearm was loaded and lying flat and unpropped on the table with the trigger guard over the mark—which happened to be next to a cash register filled with “a lot of cash.”
Stage 7, “Smuggler’s Blues,” was sponsored by Make Ready Nutrition and Red Hill Tactical. At this stage, the shooter picks up a bag filled with “cocaine,” which is an activator. To complete the course, the shooter must drop the bag into a barrel to initiate another activator. It was probably one of the more frustrating stages because of having to deal with the bag of “cocaine,” i.e., baking powder.
Stage 11, “Elvis Has Left the Building,” was sponsored by Berry’s Bullets. A little background on this stage—Elvis was the pet alligator of Miami Vice detective Sonny Crockett, who took him in as the “resident drug-sniffer and watch gator” of his boat. He weighed 300 pounds and had separation anxiety. The start position for this stage included feet touching the start stick and holding Elvis’s chained leash in the weak hand. With the handgun loaded and holstered and on the start signal, the leash was dropped and targets were engaged.
Stage 12, “Ludovici’s Last Stand,” was sponsored by Timney Triggers and Voodoo Tactical. This stage also used the Mozambique technique and was staged in the East Wash area of the Rio Salado compound. The area actually looked like a jungle run, with a platform at the end that had to be climbed using steps or a ramp. The last shots fired were from the top of the platform.
Stage 13, “Out Where the Buses Don’t Run,” was sponsored by Vortex, Pro2 Customs and Speed Beez. This stage was fun. Ranking the second largest prop of the match, this was a life-sized SWAT van converted from a box truck bought at a local auction. Pro 2 Customs handled the graphics and custom painting of the truck, using the TV show's iconic hot pink, glaring purple, bright blue and a full mix of sunset colors.
The stage started with feet straddling a start stick on the back of the open SWAT truck; the shooter jumped from the back bumper and ran to a table near the center of the stage where his or her gun had been placed, picked up the gun and engaged the course.
The match had other unique qualities as well. A good number of father-son, father-daughter and husband-wife competitors were squadded together. One example are Matt and Maureen Trask, a husband-and-wife Range Officer team. They were one of the dozen married couples who worked and shot the match. In his previous life, Matt shot M16s as a Marine, and Maureen used to shoot skeet, but they never shot together. They had driven by the Rio Salado range many times and finally decided to drive in and get a membership together. They call shooting their “go-to couples activity because it’s fun, we can do it all the time and commiserate afterward.” When they RO together, Maureen said, “It’s an added bonus having him here. I like having him around.”
Richard and Sareah Escarcega, father and daughter, have been shooting together at Rio for about a year. Richard said, “I asked her if she wanted to do this with me, and she said, ‘Yes,’ so we started with dry fire at a gym we both go to, and then we started coming out here.”
Initially, Richard mentored his daughter, but later, they found a good friend to help with her skillset. “I feel she will be safer out in the world having practical shooting skills—knowing how to use and load a gun, to shoot and ultimately defend herself,” he said.
When Sareah started shooting, she became interested in competing in the Tactical Games. She explained, “The Games are like CrossFit, Strongman and shooting competition all rolled into one. Training for the Games includes fitness, cardio, weightlifting and shooting skills, which I’m working towards.”
Sareah is also a vendor at many of the Rio matches, where she sells her baked goods to competitors, including fresh pastries, blueberry muffins and chocolate chip cookies.
Chris McNear and his son Connor have worked together towards the Area 2 match all year. Connor has been shooting since he was nine years old, starting with a .22. Now, three years later, he is shooting a 9 mm Carry Optics Canik Rival.
Connor took first place in Carry Optics D Class at Area 2 in 2024. “It’s amazing how fast these kids’ reflexes are going into these matches. I’d say he’ll be running circles around me by next year,” Chris said. “I enjoy working on stage plans with him, although now he is doing his own, which is impressive.”
Connor was also appointed one of his school’s Ambassadors for Firearms Safety. “If he sees kids that are talking about guns, he goes to sit down with them and with the principal, and talks about why it’s dangerous to handle firearms, why they shouldn’t be playing games or pointing pretend guns.” At 12, Connor is probably more safety-conscious than most adults because of his combined firearms and competitive shooting training.
Longtime competitive shooter Phillip Gallegos and his 19-year-old grandson Raymond also shot Area 2 last year. Like most years, Phillip worked Area 2, overseeing much of the prize tables and being a “general errand boy” (his words). Years ago, Raymond would visit his grandpa and watch him reload and clean his guns.
“When he was 13 years old, I took him to the desert, and we shot some .22 caliber. After that, we went to Rio Salado and started shooting the early Sunday steel matches, then worked into USPSA matches,” Phillip said.
The two travel extensively throughout the western United States and compete in most, if not all, major matches in the area. They have a close bond, and now Raymond helps his grandpa reload, clean their guns and carry them to matches.
The 2024 Area 2 match set another record for attendance and was the largest USPSA match in 2024, with more than 550 competitors. Over the past 37 years, it has become one of the premier shooting events in this country and has become world-famous.
2024 DESERT CLASSIC LEADERBOARD
Overall
- Mike Hwang, 265.42 (time), 1896.9350 (points)
- Max Leograndis, 264.32 (time), 1884.9027 (points)
- Aaron Eddins, 266.06 (time), 1829.5649 (points)
Open
- Mike Hwang, 265.42 (time), 1896.9350 (points)
- Aaron Eddins, 266.06 (time), 1829.5649 (points)
- Bridger Havens, 278.12 (time), 1838.7508 (points)
Carry Optics
- Isaac Lockwood, 285.32 (time), 1902.2520 (points)
- Jon Bautista, 289.09 (time), 1870.7347 (points)
- Hunter Constantine, 287.24 (time), 1831.1658 (points)
Limited Optics
- Jacob Hetherington, 262.34 (time), 1959.0178 (points)
- J. Anthony, 287.42 (time), 1904.5701 (points)
- Kang “Aroo” Zhou, 303.03 (time), 1739.9559 (points)
Pistol-Caliber Carbine
- Max Leograndis, 264.32 (time), 1884.9027 (points)
- Kyle Litzie, 286.92 (time), 1851.7983 (points)
- Migz Valencia, 276.03 (time), 1838.1589 (points)
You can see the full results of the 2024 Desert Classic at the Practiscore website.
Premier sponsors of the match included Excaliber Ammunition, Alien Creator and Hunter Constantine. Division sponsors were Holosun for Open, Vortex for Limited Optics, CZ Custom for Carry Optics, Vltor Weapon Systems for Single Stack, Speed Beez for Limited, JP Enterprises for Pistol-Caliber Carbine, Grayguns for Production, along with Nighthawk Custom as the Safety Area Sponsor.
It takes about 125 committed staff to organize and bring a match such as this together. As stated in the matchbook, “Without them, this event would run like Axel Foley’s Crappy Nova instead of running like a Ferrari Testarossa.”
Article from the January/February 2025 issue of USPSA’s magazine.
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