posted Dec 2nd, 2004 - The meet coverage of the NSL Championship 2004 begins with the A Class this time. GT Airlock represented the Georgia Skydiving League at Fantasy of Flight, FSC JAMMM from Lake Wales and Zero Tolerance Miami competed for the Florida Skydiving League. The A Class competition between GT Airlock and FSC JAMMM turned out to become the most exciting race of the whole 4-way event at the NSL Championship 2004.

The NSL Championship 2004 began with the introduction of the participating teams Friday at noon. NSL President Kurt Gaebel announced the teams and their previous achievements, while the team members lined up on the stage in Fantasy of Flight's south hangar. Gaebel also used a very old-fashioned method for the competition draw, which turned out to be a quite exciting way to draw the sequences for each round.

The formations and blocks of the dive pool were manually drawn during the opening ceremony from the PD Cup, the NSL's A Class trophy. While the participating teams lined up on the stage and were introduced, each team member had a turn to pull one of the formations or blocks out of the PD Cup. The sequence for one round was drawn when the team's introduction was completed.

The three A Class teams were responsible for the first three AAA Class rounds of the competition. The meet management still had to translate the AAA sequences into adequate rounds for the AA Class and the A Class. However, this method of a competition draw was as random as possible and very exciting for the participants, as well.

GT Airlock is one of the four teams that the Georgia Tech university has produced in the last ten years. DeLand Genesis/PD Blue became one of the best 4-way teams in the world and won the NSL Championship in 1998, 1999 and 2000. GT Inviscid followed the Genesis path, currently competes in the AAA Class and won the Georgia Skydiving League 2004. GT Fusion and GT Airlock both completed their first season in the A Class competition of the GSL. GT Airlock took the first place of the A Class competition in Georgia in a field of five GSL teams.

GT Airlock had shown good progression through the regular 2004 season (5.8 - 7.2 - 6.0 meet averages). The final push happened at the right time when the GSL team posted an 8.1 average after the ten rounds of the NSL Playoffs 2004 in September. GT Airlock was now on the top level of the A Class rankings and seemed to be ready to go after the A Class medals at the NSL Championship 2004. Adam Chamely, Nate Fisher, Shane Migliore, Omar Mireles and Chris Spence on video were the 2004 line-up of the regular season and were also introduced on the stage at Fantasy of Flight on November 20.

The toughest competition for GT Airlock was expected to come from Lake Wales, only 30 minutes away from the competition site of the NSL Championship 2004. FSC JAMMM of the Florida Skydiving League had struggled through the FSL 2004 season as most of the teams in Florida. The tough hurricane season had not allowed much summer training for any of the local teams, and several FSL meets were simply wiped out. The NSL Playoffs 2004 became a victim of the hurricane season, as well, and FSC JAMMM needed a weather excemption to be eligible for medals at the NSL Championship 2004.

FSC JAMMM had also struggled to commit a member for the tail position this year. As at the three attended meets of the regular FSL season, the Lake Wales team lost the tail for the NSL Championship shortly before the November date. However, FSC JAMMM members Mike Green, Joel Kmetz and Martin McKerrell did not give up and committed player coach Bruce Robertson to help out. Oslan Melendez filmed the team at Fantasy of Flight.

Despite all the difficulties throughout the 2004 season FSC JAMMM still managed to post very respectable results at the three FSL competitions (6.0 - 6.0 - 7.2 meet averages. In fact, the scores of GT Airlock and FSC JAMMM at the three meets of the regular season were almost identical, and Bruce Robertson in the tail slot for the championship event would make the team only stronger. Looking at the previous numbers, it was actually no surprise that these two teams were ready for a neck-to-neck competition at Fantasy of Flight.

The third team in the A Class competition visited from the far south of Florida. Zero Tolerance Miami had attended the minimum of two meets of the regular season and needed the same hurricane excemption as FSC JAMMM when the NSL Playoffs 2004 in Florida fell victim to hurricane Frances in September.

Gary Hansen, Guido Marti and Lance Smith had been the core of the team at the 2004 meets and posted 4.6 and 3.6 averages in May and June. Zero Tolerance did not only bring a new team member for the point position (Angel Molina) and videographer (Alex Batista) to Fantasy of Flight. Guido Marti also hauled one of his home-made mockups from Miami to Polk City and provided the 4-way competition with one of the two beautiful and very sturdy mockups for the meet. These mockups are Marti's own creation, and they can obviously be moved around quite easily. He offers his mockups for sale.

When the actual competition began Friday afternoon with round one, GT Airlock opened the race with a terrible round and fell already three points behind FSC JAMMM. The Airlock result of ten points in time was reduced to the official score of four points after the deduction of six penalty points. However, GT Airlock came back with two 10-pointers in the next two rounds, and both teams were still tied after round four.

Rounds five and six went back and forth (9 - 6 and 8 - 13) with FSC JAMMM winning a 2-point lead out of these two rounds. This lead turned into a 3-point deficit in round seven, which included a 2-point deduction for the Lake Wales team. The drama continued and became even more exciting in round eight. GT Airlock was once again hit very hard with a 4-point deduction, which caused a zero on the scoreboard. FSC JAMMM's score was reduced from six points in time to four official scoring points, which reduced the damage for the previous leader from Georgia. However, the 3-point lead had now turned into a 1-point deficit from GT's perspective.

Round eight was the technically most challenging sequence for the A Class teams and also the brightest part of the meet for Zero Tolerance Miami. It was the only round where ZeroT officially tied the scores of the other two A Class teams. Without knowing the judges' scoresheets, the official results would only indicate that GT Airlock and FSC JAMMM had bad rounds and offered ZeroT the opportunity to win a round. This was not the case. In fact, ZeroT had to swallow a 4-point deduction in round eight, as well. Truth is that the Miami team had the best round of the meet and outscored both rivals (8 - 6 - 4) before the judges pulled the red cards and deducted points for all three teams.

Getting back to the race for the gold medals nothing changed in round nine, and FSC JAMMM still had a 1-point lead going into the last round of the meet. The third sequence of three random formations of the A Class meet would bring the decision. GT Airlock had been the winning team in rounds two (10 - 8) and seven (14 - 9) and seemed to be on the safe side with another random sequence to come. However, FSC JAMMM responded to the challenge in a very impressive way and posted the team's record score of 14 points. Would it be enough?

It was not enough. GT Airlock did the same thing and posted the highest score in team history with 16 points in the last round of the meet. The GSL team finished one single point ahead of the FSL team after the most exciting 10-round race. The PD Cup of the A Class went to Georgia this year.

FSC JAMMM was still rewarded well for the great fight the team had put up. The FSL team was the big winner after handicap (99.44 - 89.00) and received 60 minutes of free SkyVenture tunnel time in the NSL SkyVenture competition. GT Airlock won 30 minutes for the second place, and Zero Tolerance Miami received 10 minutes of free SkyVenture tunnel time.

The AA Class competition is next, rounds eight and ten of the A Class competition are now posted on NSL-TV.