Again and again she yelled “pull”, and again and again the clay targets whizzed through the air, flying away from her, ejected from the “trap machine” at almost 70km/h.
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The place was Wagga, the date was April 2016, and the event was the National Trap Championship, run by the Australian Clay Target Association.
Looking along the barrel of her Perazzi 12-gauge shotgun, and firing at the clay targets more than 100 times per day, 25-year-old Yass woman Tracey Barton was unsure how well she would do at the National event, which aimed to select competitors to represent Australia in the upcoming 2016 DTL (Down-The-Line) World Championships.
“I hadn’t been shooting much this year, maybe just a few times, so I really didn’t expect anything special,” Tracey said.
“But things kept going well, as we went through the various events, and at the end of it I had the third-highest score, qualifying me for the 2016 Australian Women’s World Championship Team.”
Coming from a family of enthusiastic clay target shooters, where her mum, dad, sister and brother have all won medals at the international level, she began the sport more than 12 years ago.
“Mum and dad have been shooting for decades, and us three kids were kind of dragged to the gun clubs every weekend so we started shooting as well and got hooked. It’s been a really good sport for our family.”
The World Championships will be held in the harbour city of Galway, Ireland, between July 21 and 23, and this will be the second time Tracey has competed in that country.
“I was on the Australian team in Ireland in 2008, with my brother Glenn, and he won the Junior World Championship while I came seventh.”
Tracey is hoping that, having been in Ireland before, and with “the luck of the Irish” working for her this time, she will do well. Accompanied by her partner Bryce, also a keen target shooter, the two of them will participate in some practice events overseas before the World Championships.
“Just to be able to represent Australia for the third time internationally again, with the two other ladies in the team, makes me feel very proud,” she said.
“I won’t go in with the mentality that I’m going to win, because that can work against you, but I’ll definitely do my best.”
According to Tracey, the most important factors for success in this sport are concentration, eyesight and body strength.
“If you’re thinking about work, or things you need to do at home, you’ll miss your targets. And you need to be physically and mentally strong because shooting hundreds of targets each day can leave you feeling pretty exhausted.”
With brother Glenn, mum Wendy, and Tracey being the top three scorers in the 2016 Southern Zone Champion of Champions competition held in Yass last month, the prospects for this young champion, supported by her family, are looking good.