Extreme sports not just for kids anymore
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By Bill Kirk
Staff writer
Extreme sports are no longer child’s play.
More and more baby-boomers are getting into the act — climbing rock walls, blasting each other with laser beams, or tearing around the track in a souped-up go-kart.
At Checkered Flag Indoor Karting at the Ward Hill Industrial Park in Haverhill, highly competitive leagues have taken off among people 18 to 30 years old, said Tom Prioli, the director of racing at the facility.
But there are also a number of people in their 40s and above who have taken a keen interest in showing off their driving skills to the youngsters.
“There are a couple of guys — and a few women — in their 40s who are out there all the time,” Prioli said. “They get a real adrenaline rush and are putting themselves in a highly competitive environment.”
Marco Brunicardi is 43 and has been racing for almost a year — and he loves it.
“The adrenaline is incredible,” said Brunicardi, who lives in Dorchester but goes to Checkered Flag as often as the weather will allow. “It’s racing, it’s competition, and it’s so much fun. The karter community is very close, everyone helps each other.”
Prioli said one of the attractions for people, particularly older drivers, is that the races are as much about strategy as they are about skillfully turning the low-slung electric carts around hairpin turns as other drivers try to overtake you or run you into the rubber barriers along the walls.
“You have to be smart about it,” he said. “You’re awarded points based on how you finish in each race. So you have got to figure out how to be successful.”
Prioli said sometimes finishing in the middle of the pack is just as good as finishing first.
“It’s a nice hobby, and there’s a lot of strategy involved,” he said.
Plus, Brunicardi said, it’s good exercise.
“You have to be more in shape than I thought,” he said. “Endurance races can last a lot longer, and can be really painful for upper body muscles.”
In nearby North Andover, other 40-somethings are taking turns blasting each other with guns at Laser Craze, located at Osgood Landing on Route 125.
Greg Hughes, who opened the new venue just over a year ago, said that while the primary demographic for his laser-tag emporium is kids age 7-13, he has seen a lot of interest from young adults and people in their 40s and 50s.
Every month, there are a handful of 40th or 50th birthday parties where a big group of adults will show up, play laser tag, and then go out to a restaurant or bar afterwards to continue the party.
Older folks also show up as part of corporate events.
“The idea is to build cohesion,” Hughes said. “You get a bunch of people in an office, or on an outside sales team who don’t work together all that frequently, and you put them in this environment, where they have to work together. They are required to work as a team, and that translates into the office to make for a better company. Plus, it’s a lot of fun.”
Whatever their reasons, they all get a great workout.
“They come out dripping with sweat,” he said.
Another alternative workout that’s growing in popularity among adults is rock climbing.
At the MetroRock Indoor Climbing Center in Newburyport, a number of high school teams from all over the North Shore and the Merrimack Valley have helped drive a new wave of popularity in rock climbing.
But when parents showed up to watch their kids, they decided they didn’t want the children to have all the fun, so they created teams of their own, said Jim Whelan, the 28-year-old manager of the 2-year-old enterprise.
“The adults got together and started climbing,” he said. “It’s remarkable.”
He said while climbing may sound like an extreme sport, it’s actually perfect for older people because it doesn’t require the pounding of joints associated with jogging, or the boring hours spent on the treadmill in a health club.
Plus, it’s a lot safer than people think, especially when it’s indoors.
“If they are climbing on a rope and they fall, they just sit back in their harness,” Whelan said.
“There are a lot of older people who come in. The coolest guys in the gym are older,” he said. “We have a guy who helped start the gym in Everett — he’s 55 and still climbing the hardest grades we have. If you condition yourself, you can climb well into old age.”