Baca Loco: Hey, even if there weren't whole parking lots reserved for the event, there's plenty of parking in the area (at least in the Winter time there is). The major question would've been: How far do you want to walk. The whole region is public access beaches, each with it's own large parking area, and there's a couple of (pay) parking structures within easy walking distance of the pier (if you eat or buy in one of the local places ask for a validation sticker. Every little bit helps). There's a good 3 or 4 miles of beaches with parking lots so one of those motorized scooters would be really handy...especially if you wanted to just check out the area and didn't want to lose your parking space. My suggestion would be (after checking out Main st.) would be to head south twards Balboa...maybe you can catch Carmen Electra at the Worm's pad? Just look for the pink place with the visiting police
There's a paved bike path running up and down the coast here.
Fortunatly, parking appears to be arranged and with the teams cut down to 7-man, the need for huge rental vans is reduced. If we get the usual two parking passes (Camille?) and you guys use more than two cars, if you guys park the extra cars in a State parking lot, you only pay about $4.00 per day (cheap for the area) or on a residential street (watch for street sweeping days) you can either pile into the remaining cars or walk to the pier with your gear. I have a feeling that we'll have ten bodies at the field with 12 cars showing up...LOL.
As far as the ID cards and fees: As I understand things, when the NPPL asked the PSP promoters to fall inline with consistent application of rules and punishment, the NPPL was basically brushed off and the promoters pretty much did as they pleased. I remember the debate between "barrels off" and "barrel plugs" , turbo mode, what constitutes a trigger pull, and those darn plastic pellet shooting guns. We didn't even know about the rules/bans until we picked up our team packets. And then the rules weren't applied consistently from tournament venue to tournament venue. What I'm hoping for here is consistency. That way, we all know what to expect and we can all pull out a copy of the rules and refer to the relevant paragraph when needed. That's all that I ask for. So I guess my expectations are a wee bit lower than yours. I know how hard it is to run a tournament on time, and knowing the knuckleheads that play and always forget even their masks when it comes time to play, I suspect that for the first half of the first year of the Super 7, checking of ID cards probably won't be strict, or if there is, many people will slide by with "it's at the car" or "it's in the hotel room". Most of the time, no-one even checks if the picture matches the person presenting the ID card, and no-one knows if someone playing isn't on the official roster unless something happens to call the roster into question (such as when one pro team showed up with exactly 10 players, had one player suspended and then showed up for the next game with 10 players). I really don't care about the discounts so much (as it was pointed out, you can always get a better discount online somewhere...if you're willing to take a chance like some friends who ended up in a ghetto in Chicago, with a backed up toilet that stayed backed up all night and no lights in one room). Sorry for the long post....
Ray