SHE could almost be mistaken as the lyrics to a song, but fast, fast, Lethal Lilly Brown actually is the fastest girl in the whole darn town. Make that the fastest girl in the country, emerging from the recent western action shooting national championships with the junior trophy.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Now ranked 48th overall in Australia, the thirteen-year-old is working towards beating her father and coach Duncan Brown (aka Bronco Billy) who came away with a third in his section and is now ranked 10th overall.
“She’s not beaten me yet, but she’ll get there,” he laughed.
Both members of the Gloucester Rifle Club, the Bunyah father and daughter team competed alongside three other club members and shooters from all over the country in the national championships held in Newcastle on from November 20 to 22.
Alongside the Brown’s family placings, Gloucester’s ‘Fox’ (Norm Smith), ‘Hipshot’ (Alan Maclure) and Mrs Mac (Gwen Maclure) came 41st, 44th and 75th respectively.
While Lethal Lilly was modest about her win, her father Duncan said her competitive streak stood her in good stead before events such as these.
“On the way there, she just kept saying how she wanted to beat such and such person... and she did!”
Lilly had come away at the same event last year with a second place and so arrived at this year’s meet determined to beat her nemesis, a shooter known as ‘KT’.
“I really wanted to beat her,” Lilly admitted.
When ‘KT’ was stage disqualified during a round after ‘dropping her gun’ early on in the shoot (ranking 57th overall), Lilly and Duncan knew she would come out on top this year.
“If you drop your gun you are disqualified from that stage. If you shoot the targets out of sequence you have 10 seconds added to your time. If you miss the targets you have five seconds added,” Duncan explained.
Shooters use two revolvers, a lever action rifle and a 12 gauge double barrel shotgun on 24 steel knockdown targets in a particular sequence. The fastest wins. Duncan can shoot a round in approximately 20 seconds. For Lilly, it’s 30 seconds.
“She’s beating grown men,” her proud father said.
Certainly all those practice shoots have paid off. Leaving Nerf guns to her peers, the licensed pistol and rifle wielding Year 7 Bulahdelah Central School student and her arborist father have been firing off up to 10,000 rounds (bullets) every year on targets at home.
“We’ve spent between 20 to $30,000 over the past few years doing this. We shoot every weekend in either Gloucester or Newcastle.
“We’re now going to take a six month break to get our lives back. Lilly’s aim was to be national champion. She’s done it now, it’s time to get back to her friends,” he said.
Another notch on her custom made belt this year was the Shooter of the Year title with the Cowboy Action Shooting Society, across Australia.
“It’s such a unique sport. Kids have more chance of winning than if they were playing something like soccer which has so many more players to compete against,” Duncan said.
While both Browns claim they love the dressing up part of the sport in which they re-enact western cowboy styles from the 1850s, Duncan said the camaraderie amongst participants and the competitiveness is also very appealing.
“There’s nothing better than beating your mate,” he laughed.
Duncan said he only missed one shot in 12 stages in the recent championship – a miss which “if I’d pulled in my breeches a bit” would not have lost him fifth place. But moving from a ranking of 28 from last year and nonetheless winning the speed pistol even, the shooter known as Bronco Billy was nonetheless satisfied with tenth out of 92.
As for Lilly, her shy smile said it all.