By james art 
Super Bowl of Repressity Pinball appears faster than Flipper’s fast shot, and the only state in the United States that does not send a competitor to the North American Championship is Wyoming.
“It’s criminal,” said Josh Sharp, president of the Flipper International Association of Flipper, complaining about Wyoming’s absence from the upcoming Rochester, New York Championship on March 6th.
From 2019 to 2021, Cheen was home to a beginner competition scene for pinball. Then Joel Basta moved to the city from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“Pittsburgh is like the epicenter of the racing pinball,” Basta said. “The World Cup has been held in Pittsburgh every year for almost two decades.”
“I lived in Cheen and found that there was a zero competitive scene,” Basta remembered. “But there was a really difficult competitive scene in Colorado.”
Since then, Basta has moved to Pennsylvania, and his departure apparently left a void in the Wyoming Pinball Pinball scene.
Back in 2019, Basta built a pinball community at the Cheyenne Ice Center and events,
“It was the best place to play a pinball game in Cheyen,” Basta told Cowboy State Daily. “There was another place called Flippers. But they did not take care of their games and if you play a racing pinball, it is essential that the games are in perfect working condition. “
Basta helped organize events like Cowboy Classic, who attracted good players from Wyoming, but as Basta explained, Cheen became a place where good players from Colorado came to prove themselves.
This is because Longmont, Colorado, is the home of the best player in the world.
Border Hope for Bumper Wyo
At the Center for Cheyenne’s ice and events, Basta said, “The man who ruled it, he operated the games there, he was really interested in Pinbola and his games were flawless.”
But this is not the only reason for the Colorado players to flock to Cheen to compete. It turns out some of the best players in Colorado have made the journey through the state line to avoid one of the real wizards of the pinball in the world: Escher Kefkoff.
“Here, to Longmont, you would pass by many barns and never realize that this barn is filled with pinball machines. Not farm animals, the barn is for pinball. She grabs many people alert,” Lefkoff, then a student at the State University at the State University Colorado told CBS News Colorado in 2023. Pinball Ranking Website Currently Lists as a living in Australia.
When unfortunate competitors encounter Lefkoff, said Basta, “You better have a six pack of beer or a reading book because you will be there for a long time. The dude has just complete control over the fins and the machine at any time, he knew every individual rule, there was a great coordination of the hands and eyes, a great moment. He plays a racing pinball as he was probably 6 years old. “
Looking to avoid playing Lefkoff – Bobby Fisher from Pinball – and other great Colorado, some players in Colorado have turned to Cheyenne.
“We had many players who came out of Colorado who were sick to fight from some of the best players in the world who came out of there and came to Wyoming to try to get into the nationals that way,” Basta said.
Unfortunately, the scene of Wyoming’s pinball did not continue. He began to fade after Basta started a family and moved back to Pennsylvania.
But this year there is a new rock mountain insufficiency to cheer: a phenomenon of a dark horse from Billings, Montana, who is heading to Rochester as a ruling state champion in Montana.
Cinderella’s story, out of nowhere
“Here is someone who is a bartender in Monte Bar and a casino in Billings. They turned out to be pinball machines so he started playing. He was new to this, “said Alison Lefever, a manager in Monte Carlo, who was watching her employee Jerry Valentin rises from a pinball that no one is a state champion.
“They created a pinball league and understood what they needed to do to qualify for state and national tournaments, and Jerry was part of this crew that made it official,” Lefever said.
Valentin, who grew up outside Billings in Lockwood, where he distinguished himself on the track team as a jaw thrill, began working at Monte without a true pinball experience. When he started playing a racing only 18 months ago, Valentine was ranked about 39,000 in the world.
It is now ranked 3,859 in the world, according to the International Flipper Penball Association, jumping over 30,000 seats in less than two years.
Valentine’s winning ways began on St. Patrick’s day, 2024, when he first stated in the luck of the Irish tournament in Monte.
Less than a year later, Valentine will compete against the best players in North America.
“I am in 55th place from 58th place when it comes to sowing, so I’m definitely one of the most ranks,” said Valentin, who has recently moved with his girlfriend at Fort Collins, Colorado S
On the spot at Fort Collins, called Pinball Jones with the 40 machines, Valentine is preparing to make a dark horse at the North America Championship.
To do this, Valentine must achieve a “counselor mode”.
This is something that Valentine has learned to play a pinball machine designed as a tribute to the Canadian Rush group and the legendary drum solos by Neil Pirt. One of the features of the game involves an assessment of enough points to cause drum solo from the sound effects of the game.
A player achieves a magician regime in the Rush game and others, completing a series of evaluation options.
When you press the Wizard mode, it means that you have done it “throughout the game history” according to Pinside.com.
Valentine said a friend watched him achieve Wizard mode in the Rush game in Monte.
“A great game, one of my favorite,” Valentin said. “I beat the game and got to a magician mode in a ball.”
It took Valentine about an hour of playing a ball to hit the Wizard regime. But it was in a game that Valentine played all the time at the bar where he worked.
That is why Valentine is thinking of showing the Rochester Pinball team a few days before the race starts on March 6th.
The team is home to 75 different machines, and Valentine has many to learn about many of them.
There is Abra Kai Dabra, Flying Fair, Seded Nice, Spanish Eyes, Cheetah, Dracula, Hotdoggin ‘, Surf’ N Safari, Attack from Mars, Iron Girl: The Beast’s Heritage, WHO Tommy Penbolya.
In order to succeed, Valentine will have to acquire the complex skill of a player accustomed to competing nationally and internationally.
He will need to “BIF” – an additional hard blow with the fins – not a “panic flip”, which prematurely causes sailing before the ball is available.
And given Valentine’s newcomer in sports, he will hope for Lazar’s Ball, which is a ball that miraculously returns to life. It seems to pass between the floators, but then somehow bounces back into the game – returning the player’s game back from the dead, like the biblical character.
Pinball
When Valentine arrives at the Rochester Pinball team for the North American Championship, set by the International Pinball Association of Navigators, he will meet with Sharp.
As president of IFPA, Sharp congratulates the competitors and runs the tournament. This work comes naturally because his father is known as the man who saved the pinball.
Already in the mid-70’s Roger Sharp wrote about Gq A magazine when he decided to reverse the ban on pinball in New York. The city views pinball as an illegal game of chance. Sharp undertook to prove that this is a game of skill.
“Pinball banned by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in 1941 as a corrupt youth dirt hidden in the rear rooms in New York,” The Washington Post reports in Roger Sharp 2023.
During a kind of hearing before the City Council of New York, Sharp performed: “Live demonstration that if not for his dexterity with the silver ball, he could go very differently.”
Sharp successfully called his shots as he played and showed enough skill to convince council members to cancel the Pinball ban.
Now the sons of Roger, Sharp and his brother Zack, continue to expand the Pinball Universe. Zach is ranked 44th in the world and is the director of marketing at Stern Pinball, which for some time was the only manufacturer of pinball on the planet.
Nowadays, Pinball enjoys the Hipstria Revival, as Sharp says.
Valentine, the dark horse of Montana, who won the North America Championship this year, is young and hip and fully focuses on his upcoming trip to Rochester. Former Monte Carlo counterparts in Billings raised money to pay their journey, and Valentin plays non-stop in preparation.
Sharp said Valentine is in a disadvantage because he is young and inexperienced.
“Attempting to play all these games against you understand it on the go is a big deal,” Sharp said, adding: “Jerry is much better to be a new player in 2025 because you can go to Read a sheet of rules or watch online lessons. When I started playing in the 90s, I invented it myself or knowing someone who can tell you what to do. “
“You need to like to catch the ball and direct your shot and find out how to get it from one flipper to the other, like super safe and just set your photos, dude. This is very precise, “Valentin told Cowboy State Daily before heading for more pinball practices. “And you would not expect this from two buttons per table.”
David Madison can be reached david@cowboystateyaily.com.