mike541x

I'll be at the park this Saturday and Sunday. I haven't been in ten years and last time was during December, it sucked seeing brand new Storm Runner and not being able to ride it. Previous visits before, the only credit I got was Trailblazer, so I'm very excited to finally ride some coasters I've been wanting to ride for years. In all honesty, besides Skyrush and Storm Runner, I'm really looking forward to riding Great Bear, Comet, SooperDooperLooper and Lightning Racer.

Ah yes I remember hearing about this change in Memories of Kennywood. 4:12

^^Yeah I was really not a fan of Gwazi's operations last year. While the ride ops themselves were actually doing a decent job, the whole checking seatbelts and lapbars separately was ridiculous and I'm sure they weren't to fond of it either. Can you blame them?

"My Own Summer (Shove It)"-Deftones

Nice TR Chuck. The façade for Club Blood looks impressive! I'm hoping I'll be able to make it out to Haunt this year.

Awesome update, Chuck! I first went to Knoebels when I was five or six with some family and I rode the Phoenix. IIRC it was my first roller coaster ever and I still remember how insane it was, especially being how old I was. I need to visit this park again as it's been well over ten years.

Hurler and Rebel Yell at Kings Dominion come to mind. Rebel Yell's exit queue is what bothers me the most. I remember there were some upcharge attraction in the way, so the exit queue had to go around it, but now that it's gone they should really shorten the queue.

How are Fright Fest crowds on Fridays? I might hit the park up on the 5th since I got an extra day off of work. Also do you actually have to buy a "Scare Pass" for haunted houses?

^I wear sunglasses all the time on i305 and never had a problem with it.

When I first started to ride roller coasters, I used to be the white-knuckled kid. Then eventually I would raise my hands on certain parts of rides like going up hills. Now I try to put my hands up on every ride, including ones with OTSR.

Are Sunday Haunt tickets $35 only if you order them online or could I get the same price at the gate? I see it's the same price on Fridays but it doesn't say you have to order those online.

Intimidator 305 Kumba Nemesis Manta (SWO) Wild One

Thanks. I guess HP isn't as popular around this time of the year like other parks who do Halloween events (SF, CF, SWE parks).

I'll be visiting Hersheypark on Saturday, October 17th and possibly the 18th. Being that it's the first Saturday for "HP in The Dark", should I worry about crowds? And another thing I'm still scratching my head about is the "Fast Track" pass. So I can only skip the line once for nine roller coasters just before 5:30 pm? Then I would have to chip in another $25 for "Fast Track" in the evening for only five roller coasters? Maybe I'm not understanding something correctly but it doesn't sound like it's worth the money. Also every roller coaster except for Trailblazer will be a new credit for me. Any suggestions on where to sit on certain rides?

Two things: -Finally go my computer back after it being unusable for a couple months now. Now I don't have to suffer typing on my tiny Xbox 360 keyboard anymore. -My parents want to take a trip to Hershey Park on the second weekend of October, which I find very surprising considering that none of them ride roller coasters, and on top of that my dad just recently had surgery. They didn't even visit BGW with my friends and I last June, and they LOVE BGW. But hey it's an opportunity for family time and new credits. And with that being said I'll also be visiting Kings Dominion two Sundays from now, and Six Flags America at the end of October.

i305 video and the Gold Striker video "Take the tunnel". I also love some of the nicknames he gives some of the rides in his videos like "Plane on a Stick" and one of my favorites "Working Mach Tower"

Drachen Fire was Ron Toomer 100% through and through, but received heavy guidance from the former director of planning at BGW. The B&M rumor started online around 2004-2005 when someone noticed that if you looked at DF from a certain angle, it sorta resembled Kumba a bit, and that the supports are more streamlined that Arrow. They took that concept, and ran wild with it to the point that even that horrendously misinformed Wikipedia article on the ride claims it was B&M. I personally have asked Larry Giles, Ron Toomer, and Claude Mabillard about this on three separate occasions, and all claimed it is 100% false. I am also not the only person who has done this. Also, the supports really are nothing at all like B&M supports, and are fairly one of a kind to just this ride. Now some fun trivia about Drachen Fire you might not know! - The first concept Toomer presented to Busch was a HUGE footprint, and would have been very similar to Shockwave/GASM in layout. Busch rejected it and asked for something more compact and streamlined. In the Nova special where they show the design/construction process of the ride, you can allegedly see Ron Toomer penciling out the initial concept design. - The trains were designed in tandem with members of BGW R&D, as were the support structures. Drachen Fire's trains had tracer lights on them at Busch's request (and by the way, LNM also used to have them for a brief time in the 80s!) The two other arrow coasters built with the DF style trains ditched the lights after a bit because they were VERY problematic, but Busch kept them the whole way since it was their brainchild. The lights ran on an independent battery system inside the cars, and if I recall (granted it was 20 years ago), they were low CC motorcycle batteries. - I learned from what I would consider a very reliable source that there was an error with the surveying in the early design process of the ride. Since it happened before any production started, the ride was mirrored as it was considered easier than re-surveying the land. One of the easiest things to point out about this is that the evac stairs/harness release pedals are on the wrong side. On almost every Arrow, it's on the left side, but on DF it was on the right as a result of this change. - Apparently in the the non-mirrored run, the lift would have gone closer to the Wolf village and the wrap around corckscrew would have dove down by the Wolf's mid course brake run. Also, the Wolf village was re-done during DF construction to be full buildings, where as before they were just facades. - The grand opening was a grand flop. The ride's computer had a fault that took days to solve, so all the footage you see on various specials of people lining up to ride was actually of them waiting for nothing. Comedian Dana Carvey came out to help open the ride, and rumor has it he agreed to do it for free as long as he got to be the first public rider, but they never got it working before he had to leave. I always wonder if he ever made it back out to ride. He is apparently a huge coaster enthusiast. - Drachen Fire had traditional Arrow rollbacks for the 92' season, but the lift chain was much faster than most arrows. During testing they weren't satisfied with the speed the train was navigating the first corkscrew and up'd the speed, making the classic Arrow rollbacks even louder. It apparently was waking people up in neighboring houses when they did early morning testing, so starting in 93 they had a one-of-a-kind silent rollback on the trains. It basically stayed in the up position unless the train started to roll back, at which point gravity pulled it down and locked it into place. - When DF originally closed, the plan was to modify the trains. However after deciding the track was the bigger culprit to the problem they decided to sell it. - More than one park offered to buy DF, but no one was willing to pay the asking price ($4.5 million, for a used ride that cost $4million to build...) - DF almost re-opened for the 2002 season. In 2001 they actually did a full track inspection, green tagged a train, and even loaded it up with load testers to cycle for a while. But when they put more advanced g-force testers in it, it was outside the realm of acceptability in the lateral G area. - The fact that the ride bashed people around ultimately was only a part of the closing equation. Something people often forget is that when a ride bashes you around, it also bashes itself around. The maintenance cost on DF was probably massive, which BGW probably wouldn't like even if it had high ridership, which in it's current state, it did not. - I'm told by a friend that was working that day that someone got hurt on the last day of operation which is why there's such an obscure mid-July last day for this ride. It's a real shame. I loved that ride. If I ever win the lottery, I'm donating a replica to BGW that is modernized and has heart-lined track and better entrances to the inversions so it can live on! ...(if only). Very interesting facts. I knew about some of them (I've had an obsession over this ride for a while), but others are new to me. One thing that has been bothering me is whatever happened to Drachen Fire's trains. Only three other rides have these trains, Canyon Blaster (Adventuredome), Cyclone (Dreamworld), and Corkscrew (Toshimaen). I had originally thought Corkscrew got them and replaced the older ones, but they've been on the ride before DF was even torn down. Oh yeah, I'd love to see LNM with tracer lights, never knew they had them.

I've always loved Arrow's, no matter what kind of reputation they get. I've always loved the way they looked too, from the tracks, to the trains, they've always had a look to them that I've always admired. And to this day, I still think Drachen Fire was one of the best looking roller coasters anywhere, with B&M like supports and insipred layout, it sucks I never got to experience it. I really wish Arrow didn't go bankrupt, and it wasn't long after Tennessee Tornado was built, which I think was a game change in custom looping coasters (I've yet to ride it but it looks amazing). We'd be seeing more of these awesome rides.

Rock N' Roller Coaster, 1999, also my first looping coaster.

Going to the park for Fright Fest next month, I haven't been in about eight or nine years. I do remember they made the train ride a Fright Fest attraction back then, do they still do that? That was one my favorite things to do during FF. Also any advice on what would be the best day to go? My friend and I want to check out some mazes but we're mostly there for the night rides lol.

i305 or Kumba.

^I did notice on Batwing that the shin restraints were loose to the point where I could've easily slipped my leg out of it if I wanted to. Overrall it's still a fun ride, especially since it's a flyer (still prefer Manta though).

I've been on Batwing and Dark Knight (SFNE), and I think DK wins this one for me. Even though I've ridden it once, I remember how fun it was for such a compact floorless. Batwing is still a fun ride though.

My friend told me they removed the Log Flume at SFNE for that horrifying looking thing. Hopefully whoever's idea it was, they were fired shortly after. When I went to SFNE last year, I was suprised to see they didn't have a log flume but one of these god awful rides. Seriously, what a stupid desicion. Nice TR. SFA may not be the best park in the chain, but it certainly has been imprving lately. Hopefully it stays that way for a while.

Kings Dominion is great to go on a weekday during summer as most rides never really have waits. Six Flag America is another one. Even on the weekends, they tend to have very small crowds, in fact I don't even remember the last time any of the coaster's switchbacks have been used.