In 1992, the largest paintball game in Northern California was Paintball Hill’s scenario, Store Wars III.
Paintball Hill, located in Pope Valley, Napa County, California, was Paintcheck’s Hall of Fame field for 1992 and field owner Gary Bennett put together Store Wars, as he said, as a way “to get the local shops talking to each other.”
The Store Wars scenario comprised of several different games, the first where local store owners and their customers were pitted against their competition and then later in the day, the store owners played together against the customers in a game titles the Fox and the Hound.
The 1992 event beat previous records with 562 players not counting between 50 and 100 staff, refs and spectators.
Recorded by KFTY for like a 20 second spot, the footage was also given to local Santa Rosa Pacific Paintball store owners Chris Haggin and Richard Mansfield, who were interviewed, along with Gary Bennett, Alisha Robinson and Darryl Trent.
Chris and Richard received a copy of the uncut video and gave it to their store manager Anthony Meno who held it in safe keeping for 20 years and then passed the video to me. I edited the 1 hour of footage down to 20 minutes which I think shows a pretty good example of Paintball Hill’s terrain and cover, players gear for the time, style and most importantly Autocockers and mags.
Even Glenn Palmer of Palmer’s Pursuit Shop make a brief cameo, firing his multi barrel Grinder.
At around 11 minutes the camera follows Ironmen player Darryl Trent as he fires continuously through his top of the line 1992 Autococker reloading from his Nasty Boys pack.
Marty Bush can also be seen in several clips, not yet having converted his cocker back to a sniper.
Other highlights include the guy who smokes a cigarette though his elephant facemask and the short interview clips added throughout.
Supposedly there were 15 stores present at this event, if you know some of them please add them to the comments.
I can’t name too many but if you know some add them to the comments and I will add them to this list:
Pacific Paintball
Foxhunters Paintball
Palmer’s Pursuit Shop
I will also be uploading the separate interviews with Chris Haggin, Richard Mansfield, Gary Bennett and Darryl Trent over the next few days.
I edited this tape which was originally over an hour, recorded by a news crew during the game for a short spot (not sure if it ever aired), down to the 20 minute segment it is now.
I decided not to go with music over the game because there is actually decent dialogue and who doesn’t love the slamming of a back block on a early 90s cocker.
Big thanks to Tony Meno for keeping this VHS and passing it to me for upload.
Other full interviews from Store Wars III include, Gary Bennett, Rich Mansfield, Chris Haggin, and Darryl Trent. Find them all here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJC7papTosfXaNc7jdEaLyCKzmzk2aX92
Find more Old News about Paintball Hill here:
https://paintballhistory.com/tag/paintball-hill
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