posted Apr 6th, 2005 - The FSL Shamrock Showdown 2005 was busier for some people than for others. Several top competitors were busy coaching while competing at the same time and working on a big formation camp in DeLand. One person was surely out of breath by the end of the first meet day after a challenging double duty.

Former DeLand Majik member Joey Jones had committed to jump with and coach two participating teams, "Jamba" in the AA Class and the "Glitter Pimps" in the AAA Class. Jones is used to jump a lot on one day, however, the situation at the Shamrock Showdown was more challenging than usual.

The weather was perfect on Saturday, and the meet management took advantage of the removed limitation of the number of competition jumps allowed per day. The rules used to define the number of meet jumps to six until this limitation was removed a few years ago.

Eight rounds were finally completed by all teams at the end of the Shamrock's Saturday. This meant that Jones had made a total of 16 jumps the same day with his two teams. The veteran competitor is used to intense training and does not mind a busy schedule. However, Jones' Shamrock challenge was toughened by a very late arrival Saturday night and little sleep before the start of the meet early in the morning.

Jones was Center Inside with both teams, which made it a little bit easier for his short turnarounds and preparation time. However, the sequences were not always the same in both competition classes. In fact, only two of the ten rounds were really identical. The currently featured round three was one of these two rounds where AAA and AA Class had the same sequences (F-20-9).

Team Jamba was put together the night before the meet. Two competitors of the Southwest Skydiving League, Sabrina Win and Kurt Disser, visited Florida and were eager to compete at the Shamrock Showdown. They tried to find two other people at Skydive DeLand on Friday and were still short of a complete team at the Holiday Inn reception Friday evening.

They did not give up and found great help by Southwest Skydiving League Director Pamela Stevens next morning. Stevens had planned to compete with another "team for the meet", which did not materialize. Finally, all three SSL representatives joined forces with Joey Jones, and Jamba was complete.

The efforts were worthwhile for the Jamba members when they found out that there were also prizes for the AA Class winner. Jamba did not only make great jumps and finished with a 9.4 meet average but also took home $200 cash, Holiday Inn hotel room discounts and Majik DVDs.

Jones' second team, the Glitter Pimps, competed in the AAA Class and had Mariann Kramer (Point), Alex Pincus (Tail) and Jim Walker (Center Outside) in the line-up. Jay Kaplan was filming the team in DeLand. The Glitter Pimps had planned to form this team for the Shamrock Showdown a little bit earlier compared to Jamba.

Mariann Kramer and Jim Walker are Texas Skydiving League competitors and visited DeLand for the Shamrock Showdown. Both were teammates in last year's TSL team Rave and also competed at the USPA Championship in Perris. Alex Pincus trained and competed with DeLand Mojo in 2004. Mojo won the direct competition with Rave in the Open Class in Perris (13.6 - 10.6) by far. The joint efforts with Joey Jones and the Glitter Pimps in DeLand were rewarded with a 12.2 average after ten rounds.

The Glitter Pimps and Jamba both had a great time at the Shamrock Showdown, and Joey Jones was still glad when the first day was over. Jones recently visited the NSL office and hinted that he has a surprise waiting for the NSL News. There are rumors that he has founded a new team called "Black Magick". The NSL News will follow up with more information soon.