This is not people playing a video game at your local arcade; it's a group of crack shots competing around the hills near Los Angeles. Jim O'Young of Sunnyvale is one member of this group.

He is a longtime steel shooter, and on the weekend of Aug. 23, he participated in the world championship for the quickest shot—the 2003 Steel Challenge in the Southern California town of Piru. Reminiscent of the fast-drawing gunslinging of the old Western movie, the competition tests a shooter's ability to draw and shoot in the shortest amount of time, only the targets are five steel plates.

One aspect of the competition is the Speed Option plate, which, when hit, allows a competitor to shave two seconds off his time. O'Young competes at such an elite level that the Speed Option is not an option for him. He must hit it. And O'Young has seen competitors achieve negative times by hitting the Speed Option. He loves the contest so much that its name is abbreviated on his license plate.

"For me, it's not about the gun," he says. "It's about setting a goal and working to achieve it." O'Young, 46, took up the sport in the mid-80s after visiting a shooting range with co-workers and reading about the competition in a gun publication. "The Steel Challenge is such a romantic, mysterious name," he says.

He entered his first Steel Challenge in 1987 and placed 220 out of 350 shooters. "That was unacceptable," he recalls. Now, he typically places in the top 20. His enthusiasm for the sport has garnered him the nickname Mr. Steel Challenge as well as endorsement deals with gun manufacturers and interviews on national television.

The retired mechanical engineer consults on occasion, which leaves him plenty of time to keep himself in top physical condition for the competition. He rides up to 40 miles a day on his bicycle and visits the range six days a week. "All roads lead to the fourth Saturday in August," he says.

The state championships are in December and the nationals in April, but the Steel Challenge is the shooting Olympics, attracting competitors from the few countries that allow ownership of guns for sporting purposes.

The Steel Challenge is even popular in countries where guns are outlawed. There's a Japanese national team that comes to the U.S. two weeks before the competition to frantically practice—though they practice with BB guns in Japan.

Growing up and living in California, O'Young is sensitive to the anti-gun political climate, but says the Steel Challenge is a safe event. "Until the day the targets shoot back, it's a sport," he says. "People have fallen and skinned their knees, people have gotten heatstroke. But there has never been a firearms-related injury."

Among the many Steel Challenge rules, competitors are disqualified for pointing their gun away from the range or handling a loaded gun in an irresponsible manner.

O'Young has also worked with his sponsor, Briley Steel, to create the Plate Master, a stripped-down, skeletonized gun, specifically for the Steel Challenge. He likens the difference between this gun and other shooting-competition guns to that between NASCAR and Indy cars. The design decreases recoil and includes an optical sight for better accuracy.

The challenge piques O'Young's competitive spirit, but as one of a small group of participants, he's bonded with the people he meets at the Steel Challenge. He even takes a group from the Sunnyvale Rod & Gun Club. "The sport has a wide, diverse group of people all sharing the same love," he says. "We're all equal on the range, some more equal than others."

O'Young says that as he gets older, younger competitors are passing the established elite. Even though he's never placed first, he is such a promoter of the sport that the wife of the competition's creator dubbed him the first life member of the Steel Challenge shooting association.

He has been reluctant to disclose his hobby for fear of negative retribution, but doesn't let that stop him from pursuing his passion. Because even if his body is aging, he still possesses the key quality for shooting success: his brain. "Matches are won and lost by hundredths of a second," he says. "It's at the top level, and it's all mental."