Are you a pinball wizard? Lisle business has contest you'll flip for

Brian Gray isn't a pinball wizard, but he managed to play one mean game.

The Glen Ellyn man hadn't played pinball in at least two years. But while at Home Arcade Corp. in Lisle looking for a retirement gift for his father, he was coerced into participating in the store's annual pinball contest.

"I initially told the owner I didn't want to play," Gray said. "But he talked me into it. I did pretty good, huh?"

When the final silver ball slipped past the flippers, he wound up with the second highest score in the monthlong contest -- so far.

"I was really rooting for him," said Home Arcade owner Paul Biechler. "I thought he was going to get it. We were both pretty excited, I think."

Gray finished a few thousand points behind a Bolingbrook man who tallied 9,825,950 earlier in the month. If his score holds, Gray will receive a $200 prize for second place -- first is $300. Not a bad haul for a self-described "amateur" flipper jockey.

"I don't really have any technique. It's like any other pinball machine where you just keep your eye on the ball and be quick with the flippers," he said. "The only time I might play is if I'm at a bar and I happen to have a quarter."

Amateurs make up the majority of participants in the contest, Biechler said. This is the 11th year for the contest at the store and the first time they've stretched it out for the entire month. So far, nearly three dozen players have participated, according to the sign-up list next to the machine.

"And I almost always have to beg people to play for a chance to win $300 even though they're here already," Biechler said. "You don't have to be good, just lucky."

That's not to say he doesn't get a few people who are lured by the sign in front of the shop at 4611 Main St. promoting the event.

"We had a guy from Chicago who is a real good player come in, but he didn't do so well," Biechler said. "He'd heard about the contest and drove out just to try and win."

Biechler and his wife, Ann, have operated the store that specializes in refurbished coin-operated machines for 32 years. There are rooms full of rehabbed pinball machines and video games. The walls are stocked with refinished slot machines. Music is supplied by one of the nearly dozen restored jukeboxes. There's also an entire room of refurbished Coke memorabilia.

"We fix a couple hundred machines each year," Biechler said.

The store's inventory is updated on its Web site: www.homearcadecorp.com.

A group of employees who restore the machines toils away in the back of the business. The area is sort of a way station where machines in various stages of restoration are kept. Most pinball machines Biechler rebuilds were manufactured in the 1990s.

"That was pinball's golden era," Biechler said.

The back room walls are lined with bins filled with spare parts. And if they don't have the part, Biechler's team often has to build it from scratch.

"We're starting to come into our season," Biechler said. "This is when we are the busiest and we peak around Christmas."

Thus the genesis of the pinball contest. It's purely a promotional tool for the store.

Every year, Biechler chooses a different machine to be the center of the contest. This year he has chosen Williams' "No Good Gofers" pinball machine that was released in 1997. The golf and gopher-themed game has all the qualities that make for a terrific pinball experience, Biechler said.

"A good pinball machine has a field that's sort of open and gives the player a variety of opportunities for skill shots with a series of objectives to accomplish," he said. "This machine is also appealing to golfers and it's kid-friendly."