Taking Paintball To The Extreme

Kyle Pylinski of Norwich shoots from his belly on the speedball course at Mayhood's Extreme Paintball Park in Norwich. The paintballs are held in the plastic hopper on top of the marker gun.

Norwich site runs 3 fields on 132 acres
BY CHARLES ERICKSON
Correspondent



NORWICH -- Watching a game of paintball from the shelter of a pickup parked on a hillside above the playing field is like observing a football game from a press box.

From on high, the spectator sees things moments before the competitors do -- like when a masked man clad in black rose up from behind a bush and pumped multiple rounds at another player, similarly masked, but wearing a plaid shirt.

The sight of the "marker" recoiling arrived in the cab before the pap-pap-pap sound of the discharge, and none of the rounds was visible. Jumping out of the way of a paintball capsule is about as easy as dancing through a hail of bullets.

The plaid player knew he'd been hit but not where. He looked left and right to check for spatters of yellow and, seeing some on his marker, raised the gunlike implement over his head and exited the field.

"He's done," said Mike Mayhood, driver of the truck and owner of Mayhood's Extreme Paintball Park, which opened here in May. "He has to leave the course."

Crestfallen, the player walked away from the war zone and waited for the game to conclude. He stood silently, as verbal clues to paintless teammates are not allowed.

The paintball fields -- there are three now -- sit on 132 acres Mayhood purchased for the new home of Mayhood's Sporting Goods, which is moving less than a mile down state Route 12 to a larger building that will include an indoor archery range. The store's grand opening is scheduled for next month.

Mayhood began thinking about opening a paintball facility in 2003, but he didn't want to begin operations until he could locate the fields and the store on a single property.

He recruited two young men, Adam Kearley, 20, and Tom Votaw, 19, to help him manage the paintball side of the business. Both have been playing it for nearly 10 years.

Paintball became popular in the early 1980s, about a decade after some people decided to have fun with the markers farmers and timber ranchers used to place identifying marks on trees and cattle from a distance. The paint balls are propelled through the air by blasts of carbon dioxide gas.

The activity never went away, but like the music and dress and other cultural phenomena from two decades ago, widespread interest in paintball has been rekindled.

"Nine million people in the U.S. play it," said Votaw. "There are more Web sites for paintball than skateboarding."

The existing paintball fields occupy just seven acres. There is plenty of room for expansion, and Mayhood hopes players will come by the thousands if he can establish some tournaments at Extreme Paintball Park.

After he began planning the fields, including ordering the netting screens that act as walls on portions of the courses, Mayhood had difficulty obtaining liability insurance. A company agreed to write him a policy only after he and Kearley went to Tennessee and attended various paintball safety courses.

The insurance policy has put a number of restrictions on the Norwich paintball park. A referee on the field watches every game; masks covering the eyes, ears and mouth must be worn at all times; and there are no ladders or trees to climb.

"There are no steps at all," Mayhood said. "They're more dangerous than paintballs, according to our insurance company."

The "speedball" course, populated with blue plastic barrels and an inflatable cushion called a bunker, is the smallest course and typically hosts the shortest games: five minutes or less. There are more places to hide and natural cover on the larger woods and brush courses, where 20 minutes can pass before a player becomes the last person unmarked by paint.

Much like league bowlers and billiards players, serious paintballers have their own equipment. They arrive with markers and masks, and pay only a fee for using the fields. But most people use Mayhood's gear.

One of Extreme Paintball Park's most popular packages costs $25 and includes the rental of a marker, a CO2 canister, the field rental fee and a hopper filled with 200 rounds.

"If you're kind of conservative on paint, you can play all day," Mayhood said.

There doesn't seem to be a typical paintballer. Customers have ranged in age from the minimum 10 years up to people in their 60s. Men outnumber women, but a surprising number of females do engage in the gunplay.

"We've had everybody here from country people to inner-city people," Votaw said.

The mention of paintball can bring a skeptical look to the faces of those who've never tried the game. Scampering about clad like a knight and trying to pelt others with paint can seem like a silly activity.

But Mayhood has seen dozens of people quickly change their minds about paintball.

Just after his fields were opened, Mayhood required every employee in his sporting goods store to be cross-trained as a paintball referee. On days when the paintball park is unexpectedly busy, store workers might be needed to come up and help run the facility.

All employees were also made to don a mask, grab a marker and play a game of paintball. Some were reluctant to participate. One middle-aged worker told his boss he'd accept any task and work any hours, but he wanted nothing to do with paintball.

The man finally relented and left for his training. It was expected that he'd be gone for no more than 60 minutes -- or the absolute minimum required to learn and play a game.

"After about three hours, I came up on the hill looking for him," Mayhood said.

The man, Mayhood discovered, had been transformed into a paintball fan. He was smiling and walking around, pointing here and there, and giving ideas about where new paintball fields could be built and how existing ones could be expanded.

"He didn't want to come back to the store," Mayhood said. "He was all pumped up and excited."