Best starter pistol story

I shot a runner on the starting line in Reno once, just to watch him die.

I guess I'll start off- not too crazy, but kind of funny if you were around then. Back in the 80's when Detroit was making national headlines as murder capital of the country, then-mayor, Coleman Young, tried to crack down a bit on gun control and the violence. Well, the Motor City Striders put on a Coleman Young Road Race downtown, and the official starter was, of course Coleman Young. There was a bit of buzz around the start line when he was handed a starting pistol, told to stand on a big scaffolding, and shoot the thing into the air. Great picture if anyone captured the moment.

Roger Kingdom was making his comeback as an old dude. He decided that he wanted to hit the Olympic time in the men's 110's at Slippery Rock during a summer meet. Being a distance runner, I've never really had any experience with sprint/hurdle races, not to mention the starting pistol. I was in charge of the false start pistol and my coaches had me positioned down by starting line. To my knowledge, Roger requested that the shell of the starting pistol be smaller (not sure how that works). Supposedly, the shell that he wished to use was not powerful to start the FAT system. So, as soon as the race began, one of our assistant coaches started flipping out screaming SHOOT THE PISTOL SHOOT THE PISTOL NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

I just freaked out, pointed the pistol down the track at Roger and fired it until it was empty. I even did the one hand, pistol cocked to the side fire. It was gangsta! haha I had about 100 people in the crowd staring at me like, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS KID!!?

They restarted the race, he hit the time that he wanted, end of story. I can not believe I did what I did though, it was must a matter of reacting poorly to an intense situation that I was not prepared to handle.

Johnny Cash wrote:

I shot a runner on the starting line in Reno once, just to watch him die.

ROTFL Johnny I told you before - Dont take your guns to town

lol, i was there for that.

At the UNI dome in high school, I was stretching out on the infield and listening to music through headphones. The starter wasn't too far away and was standing on his box. The gun went off, the runners started, and I just kept on stretching. Suddenly, in a Krameresque moment, I realized an ember was in my hair and smoking. I swatted it out and probably looked really foolish.

during the 200, the starters always call for the down on the infield. We were at an inner city school in a not so great area. Anyways a bunch of kids were not getting down and were chatting away. The starter calmly walked up to the group and fired the pistol 5-6 times. The kids freaked out diving for cover. One of the funniest things I ever saw at a meet.

one time, i was working a local high school meet, and i was the false start guy. this also meant that i was the lap to go guy (we didn't have a bell). during the frosh-soph boys mile, they came around with a lap to go, so i shot the gun. i was standing right next to the long jump pit at the time, and i swear, half of the guys standing by the pit either ducked down to the ground or took off running. it was pretty funny.

Driving home from a high school meet. Group of kids passes me on the highway and throws a half bottle of beer at my windshield/hood. Scares the shit out of me. Kids slow down and are laughing and yelling. Then speed up get out in front and then slow to a crawl. You know the drill. So I reach into the box on the passenger floor and when the little bastards pull up next to me I point the pistol and put on my best Jack Nicholson grin. The little f er's jammed on the brakes, slowed down and got off at the next exit. Priceless, and I'm lucky they didn't have the real thing.

When I was young my father was a track coach so he had a pistol at home during the season. We used to have to put the garbage out in the alley behind the house every Tuesday evening for pickup early Wednesday morning. Everybody who lived on our street did the same thing, so there was always lots of garbage Tuesday nights. There were people who used to drive through the alleys in the middle of the night and go through people's garbage to see what they could find and they always left a huge mess. Of course, this left us to clean it up. One night my father heard the car pull up and saw them going through our garbage. The pistol was right there so I guess it was too much of a temptation. Walked out on the back porch and fired it off; people screamed and the tires screeched.

The scavengers no longer targeted our alley.

First track meet of the season. A freshman girl from an inner city high school was walking with a teammate with her back to the starting area of the 110 Hurdles as the race is getting ready to start. The gun goes off (they use a very loud starting gun at our school) and she screams, second gun goes off - false start, she dives behind a trash can and yells "drive by".

Obviously this was her first track meet and she had no clue what was happening. She started crying after she realized what happened. I don't think she ended up competing that day. I guess no one had thought to warn her on how they started races.

We all felt bad for her but couldn't help but laugh about it for months afterwards.

In 2004 we had a small meet at Sac state where they were trying to get all their field and timing personnel warmed up for nationals a few weeks later. They were running one of the heats of the 100's, and after they started the false start gun went off. Whoops, fired accidently. There was some muttering, and they went back and started it again. False start gun went off quickly because the timer hadn't started. So they called them back again, and there was a little bit more vocal muttering. Race started once more, and again the false start gun, except this time somebody had false started. By now, everyone in the stadium was watching the race and laughing, and most of the sprinters were just cursing. So they started again, and there was no gunshot......until the leader was about 20 yards from the finish line! Clock didn't start again. Pathetic! The sprinters were furious (can't blame them). I'd have been drained from all the adrenaline. The next time everything worked and they finished the race. Bet none of them pr'd that day. At least they fixed it before nat's.

Stuntman's 5k in LA back in the 80s.

Just a typical road race, except the starting pistol was a guy on a 50 foot platform taking a swan dive. Race started when he hit the inflatable pad at street level.

I was running the mile in league prelims one year in high school. Of course, it's league prelims with no restrictions on entry, so there were a lot of terrible runners in the race (especially since I'm a girl). It was really windy and hard to hear because of how the track was constructed. As it turned out, the very last runner got tripped up just before she got through the first 100m, and she fell. They shot the gun to bring everyone back, but I didn't hear because I was already rounding the 200. As I continued around the third turn, all these people were yelling at me to stop but I couldn't really hear because of the wind. It didn't really dawn on me until I was running down the stretch and saw all the other girls standing on the line watching me run up. I got back to the line and stopped. They told me what happened. Then we started again. I basically ran five mile laps that day. They should make a louder gun or have a false start shooter positioned on the backstretch!

2 stories: a few years ago at the Cedar Rapids 4th of July 8k, the starter was some woman who could not bring herself to shoot the gun on the count of three, so they had to reset, and let a guy fire the gun. The second is when at a fairly large xc meet in Illinois, the starter forgot to load his pistol, so there was a bit of a delay.

One time at a tri meet in high school the started for got his blanks. relizing this 10 minutes before the first race our coach went to the dollar store a bought a cap gun to use in place of the starting gun. Before every race they had to ask that everyone be quiet so that the runners and timers could hear the gun. Another time I were running a race in west virginia and the started the race with a shot gun and a orange vest because of it being the start deer season.

Many of the high school officials in NJ are truly geriatric oldtimers, some look to be 80 plus. A few weeks ago one of the 80 plus guys had a gun, he was supposed to signal last lap in a relay race, I think 4x800. He got confused, as the winner crossed the line, hands up in victory, he raised the gun and fired. It was just so typically ridiculous. Kid looked back with a great expression, WTF, I just won you moron.

At one of the winter group meets the blank cartridges must have gotten wet or something. All day long the gun was going off with an impotent pop, and they would halt the race and restart until the gun produced a loud bang, sometimes 3 or 4 times. In the 3200, after one or two of these pops one of the (faster) kids false started, the idiot official dq'ed him. Give the kid a break, with the gun misfiring all day long and all the trouble they were having getting a proper start, including in that particular race, it just didn't seem right.

I was a grad assistant some years back, and one of the classrooms was located just off the main gym (you actually had to enter the gym to get to the classroom). One of my classes was during practice time one day a week. It being indoor season and bad weather outside, the sprinters were inside in the gym. About midway through the class, the sprint coach decided to do some gun starts.

I wish I'd had a camera trained on the class. The first time the gun went off everyone just about fell out of their chairs. The professor just eyed the door and tried to act nonchalant. The was indiscriminate whispering throughout the class as the prof tried to keep lecturing.

By the second time it went off, I could pick up the coach's "set!" call, so I could anticipate the shot. It was great watching everyone get startled and start to worry a bit. After about 5 or 6 shots, to ward off potential panic I had to tell the class what was actually going on. Even after I told them, someone would jump everytime the gun went off. It made for some entertainment in an otherwise bland class.

Anybody at Paul SHort last year when they fired the big cannon twice to call back 200 runners to the line after they were already out about 150m?