PAINTBALL GETS EXTREME AT JOLIET'S CHALLENGE PARK

by Sarah Lounges


    Who has not wished for a laser cannon attachment on the hood of their
vehicle during a fit of road rage when some idiot on a cell phone cuts you
off?   

    And then there’s the mean boss who chews your butt, your  teacher who
yells when you forget your homework, your significant other who stands you up
on date or forgets to call...  Let’s face it, there are lots of folks in our
day to day lives who just irritate the heck out of us... 

     While most of us are hopefully civilized enough to refrain from acting
out our fleeting thoughts of revenge and retribution on those folks, there is
a little bit of “Rambo” in all of us that just sometimes needs to come out. 

    Come on admit it...  Aren’t there times when a glowing bullseye seems to
suddenly appear on the forehead of your parents’ after asking you to wash the
dishes one too many times?

    Well now that you have come to terms with the inner warrior in your soul
and realize that aggression is the way of the human spirit – here is a
healthy and safe way you can release the daily tensions of your life while
living out your “Kill ‘em all!” fantasies and the countless scenarios you
have seen splashed across movie screens.

     The answer lays about an 40-minutes west of the state line at a
remarkable new 143-acre facility in Joliet, Illinois called, Challenge Park
Xtreme.

      My friend Peter has been paintballing many times and often spoke of it,
so when this place started advertising in our pages, I talked my dad into
taking me out to explore what they had to offer.  Heh..heh...the glowing
target was on his head the whole trip to the park. 
 
     Let me warn you though... While driving to Challenge Park Xtreme you may
feel as though you are in a scene from Children Of The Corn seeing as how the
park is located way on the outskirts of Joliet in the midst of towering corn
fields. 

      Despite this, CPX has acquired worldwide media attention as being the
newest home for not only being home to a wide array of wildly-themed paint
ball fields, but for a variety of xtreme national competitions.

    Challenge Park Xtreme is a haven for Xtreme Sports nuts – offering a BMX
Bike Racetrack (sanctioned by the American Biking Association), a rugged
five-mile Mountain Biking courses, a Skate Park with a bevy of ramps and
obstacles for skateboarders and inline skaters, and 25 elaborately built and
uniquely themed paintball fields.  
               
    Challenge Park Xtreme, opened at the end of 2000, after years of planning
and hard work by visionary owner/designer Forest Brown.  At one time the
52-year-old Mr. Brown, who relocated to Joliet from Washington State,
actually helped to design space ships for the “Star Trek” film franchise. 
How cool is that?

    Brown expects that over 100,000 visitors will walk through his elaborate
$7.7 million dollar “playground” before he celebrates its first year
anniversary.   

    The addition of BMX and Mountain Biking courses and tracks along with the
many paintball fields allowed fans to partake in a variety of Xtreme Sports
fun all at one location.  Having it all in one place it is great because you
can skate for awhile in Skate Park and then grab a gun and head out to the
paint ball field.

     While the whirling wheels and state-of-the-art Skate Park may be a big
hit with the Pennywise and Deftones fans of our generation, it’s the great
paintballing experience Challenge Park Xtreme offered to me that made this
weekend warrior want to share this great place with our readers.

     When paintballing first started to get popular in the late ‘80s, the
only places to really play were open fields and open wooded areas. (Unless,
of course you are my dad, who would just as well go up on the railroad tracks
and shoot trees and small woodland creatures – just joking).  

     Today the popularity of the sport is growing in leaps and bounds (there
are now 2,000 official paintball fields across the USA), so players are
demanding bigger, better and more elaborate courses upon which to shoot each
other.  Mr. Brown and his staff took up the challenge to meet those demands
and have created a huge facility that is open year ‘round and unlike other
area paint ball fields which are only open on the weekends, Challenge Park
Xtreme is open five days a week (it’s closed Mondays and Tuesdays) with plans
to soon go seven days a week.

    Some of the fields are not fields at all when you step into the elaborate
set up  at Challenge Park Xtreme.

     A visitor will feel like an Old West gunfighter while walking through
“Fort Courage,” which is a recreation of an old 1800’s cavalry outpost. 
What’s cool is that you don’t even have to wait until high noon to start
shooting.

    If that’s not your style, you can always pretend to be Mel Gibson as Mad
Max, roaming through “The Wastelands,” two acres of strategically abandoned
road vehicles in search of gas. The goal here is to find and capture all the
gas cans.  Remember how rare a valuable gas was in the “Mad Max” films?   

   And if you are the type who craves exotic adventure, then I suggest you
could explore “The Jungle of Doom.” There you can pretend to be Indiana
Jones, as that field features a reproduction of an actual Aztec Temple where
a golden idol is hidden.  The goal is to capture the idol before your
opponents.

    Then there is always “The City of Armageddon,” where you step into a
city, or at least what is left of one, that has been blown to bits.  Some of
the rubble piles have hidden speakers which emanate machine gun and bombing
sound effects, while others hide fog machines that give the ruins a
smoldering effect.  

      For the more traditional players they also have a large wooded back lot
region where you can live out fantasies of hunting down your targets commando
style.  There are plenty of other fields of play as well, but you get the
idea.  A variety of games are played on the various fields as well.  Most
games are played in teams ranging from 5 to 30 people per side.

    I was surprised to learn that there are even formal paint ball leagues
offered these days and they work the same way as bowling leagues work.  There
are mixed leagues and advanced leagues and all sorts of leagues.

   I loved my first paintball experience, but let me tell you, it is intense!
 I was so scared the first time I walked onto the field, which was the town
of Bedlam complete with buildings, cars, mailboxes, phone booths street
lights...the works.  I just could not believe that I was walking out on to a
field with a semi-automatic weapon in my hands ready to blast away at total
strangers!  As soon as the gunfire started I panicked and ducked into a
building.  A few minutes later I stuck my head out of a doorway to see what
was going on and wham! I got shot in the head, of course I was wearing a
mask, which is required.

     Later I was ambushed and shot up so badly that I resembled swiss cheese
from all the yellow paint splotches. By the way...the paintballs that don’t
break are the ones that hurt the most.  I got some nasty looking bruises. 
Would I do it again?  Of course!  I had a blast once I experienced my first
“kill” and captured my first flag.

    After about three games I got up enough nerve to fire off my first shot
and after that I just lost it and starting shooting everyone.  It was great! 
I’m so glad that more women are giving it a shot (pun intended) because for a
long time paintballing was a predominantly male thing. You ladies that have
not tried it do not know what you are missing!

    I went to Challenge Park Xtreme never having paintballed before and after
running around for a few hours with my weapon blazing in the company of many
seasoned players, it was unanimously decided that I had “the right stuff!”
You can bet the next time one of my teachers decide to assign a 10-page
report due the next morning, I’ll be heading out with my mask down and weapon
slung.  Revenge is sweet...even if it is just pretend.