Zap International Open - Daily Coverage

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The Zap International Amateur Open

Foiled by technology! We apologize for the inconvenient lack of our planned daily reports from the Zap Amateur Open. Unfortunately the Days Inn hotel in Cranberry PA has a proprietary phone system which didn't like our modem :-( We're still in the planning stages of providing very full coverage for another upcoming major tournament, and we're making sure we don't get caught in another surprise like this one.

Many Thank Yous

The staff of the WARPIG project would like to extend our thanks to the following people:

The staff of USA Performance Products for graciously making our appearance at the Zap Amateur Open possible through financial support and the use of space in their booth to promote WARPIG, as well as letting Dawn Mills use one of their Viper-M1 markers (which was meant for display in the vendor's booth) in the 5 man tournament.
Al Iba, Doug Devin, and the rest of the folks at I&I Sports Supply Co., Inc. for providing us with hundreds of internet starter CD-ROMs to give away, thus helping bring more paintball players onto the internet. Also, thanks for the big box of give-away goodies they sent - gear bags, barrel bags, gun mats, air horns, Kool Wraps and more. Some of which went out as raffle prizes, and some of which we were able to give away to players looking a bit worn down - free paintball stuff always seems to brighten people's day.
Randy and Gwen Baxter from Splat-1 Adventures for lending Dawn the supplies she needed to play in her first tournament in her 9 years of paintball. And to Gwen, Lori, Donna, Patti and Kelly of the Lady Treedancers for giving her this honor of playing with them. And to the men behind LTD for being fabulous behind the scenes!
Deborah and Ryan Krishke of Team Effort Events for all of their time and hard work in making the Zap Amateur Open the great event that it was.
Thanks also to Zap Paintballs, and all of the other major sponsors who made it all possible.

Winners!

In the 5 man tournament (Novice)

1 Bite 'Em - black
2 Criminal Mischief
3 Rapid Fire
4 The Family

In the 5 man tournament (Amateur)

1 Team Raptor
2 Dragoons
3 Tagg Team
4 Thunder Chickens

In the 10 man tournament (Amateur)

1 Green Dragons
2 SOB's
3 Thunderstorm
4 Virginia Gentelmen I

Travel Tips

Getting from the Pittsburgh airport to the hotels - of course you may be renting a car, but you might be taking a taxi, shuttle bus, or limo. A taxi driver we spoke to said the fare would be $55. Shuttle busses to the Cranberry area run $35 for two people, but travel on limited schedules - you might have to wait 3 hours or so (Erk!). A limousine, on the other hand runs $60 from Embassy Coach. Various sources of ground transportation can be found at the Ground Transportation desks near the baggage claim.
Watch your speed! A local informed us that there is a nice little stretch of road 60 connecting to I-79 which has a speed limit of only 25mph. It comes up on you all of a sudden, and there are plenty of bush hidden driveways where one of the local lawmen likes to sit with his radar gun.

Concerned about the weather?

Check USA Today's 5 day forecast
Or look at Intellecasts' latest radar map of the area.
A full report, and additional images can also be found at Intellecast

Looking for the WARPIG booth?

We were pretty much near the middle of the tent, in USA Performance Product's booth. Right behind us is Smart Parts, and to our left was PCRI, with Sandana a little further down. If you managed to get to get there when the tent closed at 5:00, you saw stage show. Sandana's Rob Kerr lead people in dancing the latin dance craze, the "Macarena" (sp?).

Lady Tree Dancers

For those of you who have been under a rock, and don't know about LTD, it is an all woman amateur team which has been playing in major tournaments for years. WARPIG's own Dawn Mills signed on with LTD for the 5 man competition. Placing in the middle of their division, were awarded a divisional sportsmanship award.

5 man interrupted by weather

Mid-day, Thursday, the 5 man competition was interrupted by a thunder storm. Players played on through the rain, but when lightning strikes got close, the games were put on hold until they passed. After a bit of delay, games resumed. In the spirit of true sportsmanship, we saw a number of teams scrambling to bundle, move, cover and protect their competitors gear and paint from the rain weather.

Prototype paintguns unveiled

Regulars on the internet, especially rec.sport.paintball, are well familiar with airsmith Glenn Palmer. Known for his custom semi autos the Typhoons, Hurricanes, and more, Glenn was showing a prototype of his Blazer production model paintgun. Based on the same closed bolt pneumatically operated system as his other semis, the Blazer features a very compact aluminum receiver, and self centering brass barrel. Other prototypes turning up included the Angel V6 electropneumatic, being imported to the US by Brass Eagle, and the electric rotary breach "Revolution" semi from Component Concepts, manufacturers of the Phantom pump paintguns

New products and programs unveiled at the Industry Conference

The 6th annual Paintball Industry Conference focused on fields this year, with over 130 attendees. Round table discussions allowed field owners to network and exchange ideas about how to help paintball grow, and where it will be heading through the next year, including a rather strong debate on whether fields should have bring your own paint, or field paint only policies.

Negative exposure lead to a boost in the sport - Hard to believe but true. Several field owners commented that after NBC's Nightline ran their story on the Los Angeles teenagers who used paintball equipment to assault pedestrians and cyclists they saw an immediate increase in new players contacting their fields, and did not get much of the negative back-lash which they expected. Those who did get negative feedback said it was relatively easy to counter with the explanation that what was seen on television is not what the sport of paintball is about, and such things don't happen at an organized, supervised paintball field.
Brass Eagle, the paintball division of Daisy airguns had several announcements:

The new Talon paintgun. We had a chance to look over and try one of these at the Brass Eagle booth during the tournament. It is basically a Nelspot style pump built with a plastic body that is reminiscent of a Splatmaster. And a tip we learned from a Brass Eagle tech - polishing the internals with Pledge furniture polish makes the action much smoother. The big revolution about this marker is that it will be packaged with a barrel plug and "Intro to paintball" video for $49.95 retail. Orders have already been placed to ship 51,000 Talon paintguns by December 1996.
The Raptor - This is a new all metal marker from Brass Eagle. In concept it is similar to an F1 Illustrator, with some refinements and a lower price. One of the most innovative features we noted was the inclusion of three sight rails, to allow a top mounted sight, as well as sidecar style squeegie holders, and or a telescopic sight on the side.
The Angel - Brass Eagle is now importing (from Great Brittain) an electro-pneumatic paintgun, the Angel. Capable of very high rates of fire, and utilizing fast recharging batteries for the electronics, the Angel is planned to retail for $1500.
Major mass distribution - After successful test marketing, Brass Eagle products will soon be available in 1,900 K-Mart stores nation wide, and additional large chain stores such as Service Merchandise. This has raised concern amongst many people in the industry, especially field owners, that the general public will be buying paintball gear and playing renegade paintball without proper safety training. Injuries caused by such play could potentially lead to zoning and legal problems for commercial fields. Brass Eagle plans to combat these problems with the safety instruction in their video and the Eagle's Nest program. While the video shipped with the Talon explains proper chronograph use, chronographs are not amongst the items to be distributed through these mass market retailers.
The Eagle's Nest program - Designed to help the new mass market paintball consumer find a place to play paintball safely. Brass Eagle is putting together a database of participating fields. Customers purchasing Brass Eagle products will receive a coupon for a free day's play at participating fields (one coupon per person - this is just to get them to a field for the first time) as well as a hot-line number to call for information on the field nearest to them.

USA Performance Products announced their new marker the Viper-M1 semi-automatic, with it's integrated expansion system, and factory add-on components including stocks, raised sight rails, grips, barrels and bottom line systems.
Smart Parts showed the Shocker electro-pneumatic paintgun which saw field use during the tournament. Of the advantages Bill Gardner mentioned this paintgun having, it's low pressure operation means extreme accuracy, and "No reason to use nitrogen that we can come up with". The Shocker carries a retail price of $825
Rick Fairbanks from National Paintball Supply South announced new field starter packages to help people get into the business side of paintball. Starting as low as $1,900 down for an equipment package with pump markers, National is providing interest free financing to minimize the start-up capital needed to run a field.
Warrior Sports Gear unveiled their new gear and barrel bags as well as a sharp line of paintball shirts which don't include lewd sayings.
RTC unveiled their tracerball, and later demonstrated it after the industry cocktail party Friday night. Another demonstration was performed after the player's party Saturday night. The tracer ball is a glow in the dark paintball. A special strobe unit is placed on the end of the marker's barrel, and it "charges" the glow in the dark paint with a pulse of light. The result is a streak of green from the marker to the target, and a flash of light when the ball breaks. Speedball in the dark looks like a scene out of Star Wars. With a retail price on the flash unit at $250, this seems a little cost prohibitive, however RTC is developing a field leasing program which can make it cost effective for a field to lease the flash units for a few weeks when they run night-games (as most fields run 1-2 night games per year). For more information on the Tracerball, check out RTC's homepage at http://www.tracerball.com.

Major scheduled events

Note: due to last minute changes, this schedule may not be 100% accurate. We will update changes as we become aware of them

Wednesday, August 7th

Team and Judge registration and check in - 7 Aug 12:00 - 7:00pm
Industry Meetings - 7 Aug 10:00 - 5:30pm
5 player team captains meeting 7 Aug 7:30 - Sheraton meetingroom

Thursday, August 8th

Judges report to fields 7:00am
Team check in at fields 7:30 am
Games start 8:00 am
Vendor tent open 10:00 to 5:00pm
Lunch available 11:00 - 3:00pm
NAPRA Certification - Sheraton meeting room 7:00 - 10:00pm

Friday, August 9th

Judges report to fields 8:00am
Team check in at fields 8:30 am
Games Start 9:00 am
Gotya Speedball 8:00 - 12:00
Brass Eagle Pump Tournament 10:00 am to midnight - fields 5&6
Vendor tent open 10:00 to 5:00pm
Speedball Arena open 12:00 - 5:00pm
10 player team registration 10:00 - 4:00pm
Lunch available 11:00 - 3:00pm
Target Shoot competition 1:00 - 4:00pm
Fields open for inspection (check registration booth for availability) 2:00 - dark
10 Player team captains meeting 4:00pm - Sheraton
Manufactuer's/Field Owner Industry coctail Party (RSVP - Only)

Saturday, August 10th

Judges report to fields 7:00am
Team check in at fields 7:30 am
Games start 8:00 am
Vendor tent open 10:00 to 5:00pm
Speedball Arena open 12:00 - 5:00pm
Lunch available 11:00 - 3:00pm
Target Shoot competition 1:00 - 4:00pm
International Player Party - 5 player division Awards presentation - 10 player Sportsmanship and Zany Zap awards - Ms. International Paintball Pageant - 6:00 9:00pm

Sunday, August 11

Judges report to fields 8:00am
Team check in at fields 8:30 am
Games Start 9:00 am
Gotya Speedball 8:00 - 12:00
Vendor tent open 10:00 to 5:00pm
Speedball Arena open 12:00 - 5:00pm
Lunch available 11:00 - 3:00pm
Target Shoot competition 1:00 - 3:00pm
Awards presentation 4:00pm

WARPIG's webmasters can be reached through our feedback form. All articles and images are copyrighted and may not be redistributed without the written permission of their original creators and Corinthian Media Services. The WARPIG paintball page is a collection of information and pointers to sources from around the internet and other locations. As such, Corinthian Media Services makes no claims to the trustworthiness or reliability of said information. The information contained in, and referenced by WARPIG, should not be used as a substitute for safety information from trained professionals in the paintball industry.