posted Jun 14th, 2004 - Skydive City in Zephyrhills hosted the fourth meet of the Florida Skydiving League 2004 season. Six teams made the trip to one of the oldest professional skydiving centers in the world. DZ manager TK Hayes welcomed the FSL teams with a treat in the morning and served his most famous pancakes while the competitors registered and prepared for the first round.The Saturday with typical Florida summer weather started out with blue skies and sunshine. Around noon, the summer clouds had built up enough to interfere with the skydiving operation, and weather holds needed to be called for the safety of the event. A storm with thunder and lightning was threatening nearby and still never hit the drop zone. However, it was close enough to keep the planes on the ground. When the jumping operation resumed, there was only enough time left to complete round five of the competition.

Four of the teams in Zephyrhills competed in the AAA Class competition, including a new team from DeLand with British world class coach and competitor Pete Allum. DeLand Scape, or De Landscape, or Scape also consists of Brian Johnson, Michael Biederman and Rusty Lewis. Ray Dutch is the team's videographer. This new team promises to become one of the best teams in the country with a great mixture of talent and experience.Rusty Lewis is originally from the UK and works at SkyVenture Orlando. Lewis has not competed and trained with many 4-way teams in his career and is relatively new to the 4-way community in the USA. He joined the Teiwaz line-up for the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2004 in DeLand and finished the 10-round competition with a 15.4 meet average in March. Lewis now accepted the center outside position in this new team. DeLand Scape opened their 2004 competition season with a 16.0 average.

Michael Biederman in the point position is the youngest team member with even less 4-way experience compared to Lewis. However, Biederman is one of the veteran instructors at SkyVenture Orlando and flies circles around most other 4-way experts in the tunnel. He trained and competed with DeLand TBD thoughout the 2003 season at a 12.0 - 13.0 average level.Brian Johnson is the most experienced team member behind Pete Allum and flies the team's tail position. Johnson has trained and competed with several teams and has recently been looking for a high-profile and talented line-up in DeLand. Johnson is also the editor of the Majik DVD and a new software program for 4-way teams, called Training Log. He gave away free trial CD's at the meet in Zephyrhills to inroduce his new program, which will soon be offered on the market. Veteran 4-way videographer Ray Dutch from DeLand completes the Scape's line-up.DeLand Scape completed only 26 training jumps before this competition. The team plans to attend several more of the FSL 2004 meets and compete at the NSL Championship 2004. The 16.0 average at Skydive City is a great start for a promising new team progression in Florida, which has had a slow season to this point. This meet average even included a serious exit funnel in round five, which caused Scape to give up this round to Sebastian Teiwaz. It was the lowest score of their first competition with 11 points. Scape's highest score was the 22 in round two.

Sebastian Teiwaz competed with Robert Healy (center outside), Kurt Gaebel (point), Ron Hill (center inside) and Alex Pincus (tail). Pincus won the USPA Advanced Class gold medal in 2003 with Inferno and is now a member of DeLand Mojo. He came from Houston to Florida for a Mojo training camp in DeLand. The Mojo training began on Sunday, and Teiwaz was grateful for the chance to include Pincus in the line-up for this meet. It was also an early opportunity for Mojo's possible future rear piece to get familiar. Teiwaz member Ron Hill might fill the open Mojo slot for the remainder of the 2004 season, which became available when the team's original center outside, Matt Norris, had to step back due to injury.Sebastian Teiwaz had to switch some positions to accommodate this line-up. Hill moved from tail to center inside, and former center inside Kurt Gaebel took the point position to fly in the front piece with Robert Healy. Teiwaz has already been quite flexible with the slots in the previous meets and completed the five-round meet with a respectable 14.8 average.

Two other Teiwaz members of the line-up at the previous FSL competition in May, Bob Byrne and Barbara Kobzik, teamed up with Steve Rand and Paul Bertorelli to post the first scores of the FSL All Stars. Byrne and Kobzik came from a 13.6 Teiwaz meet average in May and provided the new All Stars team with their knowledge and expertise. Byrne switched from center outside to point position, which allowed Bertorelli to fly his original slot, while Kobzik kept her center inside position. Bertorelli and Rand both came to this meet with very little AAA Class competition experience. With Byrne's and Kobzik's help, the All Stars managed to post a very respectable 8.6 meet average.

The FSL All Stars and Windline Lightning gave each other a great race in the AAA Class for the third place in Zephyrhills. The Lake Wales team showed up with the same line-up as in May in DeLand (Tiffany Short - center inside, Billy Bradshaw - center outside, Mike Mathes - point, Anabel Durham - tail) and posted almost exactly the same meet average with 8.4 points. The All Stars had taken an early lead of three points after two rounds. Lightning came back in round three and reduced the difference to one point. Both teams then tied their scores in the remaining two rounds, which gave the All Stars the one-point edge at the end of the day.

FSC JAMMM and Zero Tolerance competed in the A Class. Both teams had anticipated their direct competition for a while and finally met at Skydive City. Both teams were also at the May meet in DeLand. However, FSC JAMMM was one member short that morning and had to withdraw in the last minute. Zero Tolerance would have enjoyed the competition already in DeLand and would have filled the open JAMMM slot. It did not happen in May. Zero Tolerance once again made the long trip from Miami to join the A Class competition in Zephyrhills. Robert Stoky traveled the longest distance in FSL history coming from Key Largo. The Lake Wales team was present and complete this time, and also ready to take on the challenge from the south of Florida.FSC JAMMM's original line-up with Mike Green (center outside), Joel Kmetz (center inside), Maria McCaffrey (tail) and Martin McKerrell (point) did not give their friends from South Florida much of a chance though. The Lake Wales team dominated the A Class competition from the very beginning and posted their highest result of the 2004 season with a 7.2 meet average. Team member Martin McKerrell mentioned after the meet that FSC JAMMM has come a long way: "This time it finally felt like 4-way competition skydiving, and not like four recreational skydivers trying to do 4-way."

Zero Tolerance was at least able to match the JAMMM score in one round. The line-up in Zephyrhills consisted once again of Guido Marti (center inside), Robert Stoky (point), Lance Smith (center outside) and Gary Hensen (tail).The A Class competition between FSC JAMMM and Zero Tolerance will be continued in July when the Florida Skydiving League will move closer to Zero Tolerance and compete at Skydive Sebastian.