Paintball Magazine Paintball.Media Magazine, June 2019 | Page 17

Photo By Brian Morrill
When I saw the weather reports early in the
week leading up to the NXL’s Texas Open
I have to admit, I went into “oh no” mode
quickly. I remember the cold, rain and mud
here in the PSP days and I remember the
Mardi Gras Open weather fiasco and the “it
never stopped raining for a minute” Pomona,
California event more than a decade ago.
And the reports coming in Monday, Tuesday
and Wednesday before I got here to Texas
did nothing to ease my fears. I’ll also admit
that I strongly considered changing my plans
and not coming to Texas—but I didn’t. I
boarded the plane from Washington DC at
the crack of the crack of dawn on Thursday
and made the three hour flight despite my
fears of a washout weekend. And wouldn’t
you know it, 45 minutes outside of Dallas
we got the dreaded “we’re going into a
holding pattern” announcement from the
pilot. The reports of strong thunderstorms
and possible tornadoes took us off course.
But we eventually landed and somehow
someway the sun was shining and there was
no rain in sight.
Strangely between my shuttle ride to the
car rental building and my drive from Dallas
Love Airport to the Texas Motor Speedway,
home of the NXL Texas Open, there was
literally no sign that it had rained, or that
there was wind damage and there certainly
was no sign of a tornado. And then reality set
in as I pulled into the parking lot across from
the vendor village at the event. The parking
lot seemed as though it had absorbed the
Gulf of Mexico. The mud was thick. I got
flashbacks of players wearing shrimp boat
boots at Mardi Gras. And the flashbacks
turned to reality when the first person I saw
at the event, Tim Montressor, was indeed
wearing white shrimp boat boots.
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