Hello gang! I'm back from the Las Vegas, 2002 Pan-Am:)
Smooth is the only word to be said for how the tourney was operated. Big HOOAH's to Dan Bonebrake and his Pan-Am team of tireless workers:) This year, they covered two tennis courts with astro-turf and padding, and added another field over the top of an abandoned race track. Despite a section that was 2' higher than the rest of the field didn't seem to matter to anyone. Two more fields were added using the volleyball area. And, once again, the indoor roller-hockey rink was converted to a five man field. This means, that no games were played on the infamous desert dirt, dust, rocks, and chunks of re-bar! The AKALMP Excaliber Joust was enjoyed with great enthusiasm, filling the grandstands with cheering spectators (WARPIG.com will have all the winners names). AO member RamboPreacher competed, and performed his patented full field assault and push attack all the way to the far end....and then was quickly shot out! But, it was beautiful to watch
Although some heated tempers flared up, at no time did I see, or hear about, any thrown equipment. The judges were fair and worked hard for the whole 5 days. I never heard any complaints about them either. Congrats on a well reffed and judged tourney:)
Due to floor-space constraints, those company's with big rigs or trailered display's, were situated at the outside edge of the parking area. I thought they should have been allowed to set up against the main building. As it was, they were outside of the flow of foot traffic between fields and team locations in the lot.
The only real debacle of the weekend, was the night games using glow-in-the-dark balls. The bags of balls were not subjected to a bright enough light source for a long enough time. Every light in the building, nearly, had to be shut off so as to barely see anything on the field, you could not see any hits on players. The only time you could see the balls, you had to be on the far ends of the field and see them hit the net in front of you. Hopefully, next year they will have a better set-up, and make this a talked about event.
I was set up with Jeff Sabitini, of Paintball Daddy's, at his table and display booth. Warps and Intelliframes were in some demand, and lots of guys came by to pick up a LX. I was kept reasonabley busy installing new parts and componants, and teching guns and Flatlines. I rebuilt RT # 0211 back to full working condition. This was the first time it had been taken apart in 6 years of playing with it....and it showed! All three banjo bolt O-rings were toast, but still held pressure!, and the PT O-ring was a goner and leaking. The bolt was so worn, as not have a reversed bevel anymore for the sear to catch on! Jeff and I easily talked him into a Level 10!
Not many 'Mags in the tourney this year. Most teams were more fully sponsored than in years past, Timmy's and modified 'Cockers were dominant. A surprising lack of Angels was evident, perhaps due to the more amateur level of the Pan Am, who knows?
I had many hundreds of photos to share, happily stored in the camera's memory...until I hit the wrong button twice. Yup, all deleted, including three great videos. Yes, I feel about this small.
But I did go around Sunday and try to salvage some of the event for AO, so lets see some of those!
First up, the indominatble Dan Bonebrake, rushing to another crisis to be fixed on the spot:
Smooth is the only word to be said for how the tourney was operated. Big HOOAH's to Dan Bonebrake and his Pan-Am team of tireless workers:) This year, they covered two tennis courts with astro-turf and padding, and added another field over the top of an abandoned race track. Despite a section that was 2' higher than the rest of the field didn't seem to matter to anyone. Two more fields were added using the volleyball area. And, once again, the indoor roller-hockey rink was converted to a five man field. This means, that no games were played on the infamous desert dirt, dust, rocks, and chunks of re-bar! The AKALMP Excaliber Joust was enjoyed with great enthusiasm, filling the grandstands with cheering spectators (WARPIG.com will have all the winners names). AO member RamboPreacher competed, and performed his patented full field assault and push attack all the way to the far end....and then was quickly shot out! But, it was beautiful to watch
Although some heated tempers flared up, at no time did I see, or hear about, any thrown equipment. The judges were fair and worked hard for the whole 5 days. I never heard any complaints about them either. Congrats on a well reffed and judged tourney:)
Due to floor-space constraints, those company's with big rigs or trailered display's, were situated at the outside edge of the parking area. I thought they should have been allowed to set up against the main building. As it was, they were outside of the flow of foot traffic between fields and team locations in the lot.
The only real debacle of the weekend, was the night games using glow-in-the-dark balls. The bags of balls were not subjected to a bright enough light source for a long enough time. Every light in the building, nearly, had to be shut off so as to barely see anything on the field, you could not see any hits on players. The only time you could see the balls, you had to be on the far ends of the field and see them hit the net in front of you. Hopefully, next year they will have a better set-up, and make this a talked about event.
I was set up with Jeff Sabitini, of Paintball Daddy's, at his table and display booth. Warps and Intelliframes were in some demand, and lots of guys came by to pick up a LX. I was kept reasonabley busy installing new parts and componants, and teching guns and Flatlines. I rebuilt RT # 0211 back to full working condition. This was the first time it had been taken apart in 6 years of playing with it....and it showed! All three banjo bolt O-rings were toast, but still held pressure!, and the PT O-ring was a goner and leaking. The bolt was so worn, as not have a reversed bevel anymore for the sear to catch on! Jeff and I easily talked him into a Level 10!
Not many 'Mags in the tourney this year. Most teams were more fully sponsored than in years past, Timmy's and modified 'Cockers were dominant. A surprising lack of Angels was evident, perhaps due to the more amateur level of the Pan Am, who knows?
I had many hundreds of photos to share, happily stored in the camera's memory...until I hit the wrong button twice. Yup, all deleted, including three great videos. Yes, I feel about this small.
But I did go around Sunday and try to salvage some of the event for AO, so lets see some of those!
First up, the indominatble Dan Bonebrake, rushing to another crisis to be fixed on the spot:
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