Hang And Bang

- Raging Bull (from the backseat) - Deja Vu (the first forward drop) - Any Intamin 2nd gen drop ride - those things truly terrify me!

I know, right?! Just imagine how great SFSTL's skyline would look with the brown of The Boss juxtaposed against a smaller but even more twisted white woody. Plus, white would definitely fit in with that section of the park, and of course the 70s theme. And it would go even further in distinguishing SFSTL from the other SF parks. Who knows, maybe it would start a new trend in wooden coasters. But you're right, they definitely won't paint it white.

As much as I wanted a hyper for our park I have to admit I'm pretty excited about this new addition. It really looks like it'll be an incredible ride! I just wish SFSTL would break the mold and paint the ride white. Since the coaster is themed to Evil Knievel anyway, how much more 70s could you get than by painting it white? In any case I say bring it on! As an aside I wonder if they'll pull a THBS and start cloning this ride at other parks next year...?

No prob. It looks like a fantastic coaster, and though it's a clone, none exist here in the U.S. Sweet! And I think the Evil Knievel themeing is pretty cool... bring on the 70s!

Myfoxstl.com has a pic up of the rendering of the new coaster... Here's the accompanying article... New Wooden Roller Coaster, Evel Knievel, Rides into Six Flags St. Louis 2008 New thrill ride marks park’s fourth consecutive year of capital expansion St. Louis – September 27, 2007 – Continuing its tradition of providing park guests with new and exciting thrills each season, Six Flags St. Louis announced today plans for its latest addition: Evel Knievel. This $7 million wooden wonder is unlike any of the park’s existing eight coasters. Evel Knievel, the park’s third wooden coaster, is a compact twister by Great Coasters International, Inc. which will present an impressive visual from I-44 and a formidable challenge in person. “The unpredictability and high energy of this coaster makes it the perfect way to pay tribute to the king of adrenaline, Evel Knievel,” said David Roemer, President of Six Flags St. Louis. A daredevil’s dream, the 2,700-ft. ride experience begins with an 80-ft. first drop at a 90° left turn angle, which is answered with a 55-ft. double down drop. Sixteen hills follow with camelbacks, a 40-ft. fan curve and multiple high-banked turns at up to 67° angles. Standing 82-ft. tall and traveling 50 mph, this intense coaster crosses over itself an incredible 14 times while making frequent and tight directional changes. Evel Knievel will boast two 24-passenger trains of GCI’s own Millennium Flyer cars specially designed to maneuver the ride’s sharp turns and high banks on a dime while providing an exceptionally smooth ride. Evel Knievel, born in Butte, Montana in 1938, began his daredevil career in 1965 and over the next 12 years earned the name of America’s Legendary Daredevil for his heroic and death-defying feats. Through his eventful career, Evel had garnered international media attention for both his successful jumps and his amazing crashes. Some of his career highlights and best known feats include setting a world record for jumping 19 cars in Ontario, CA in 1971; flying over 50 cars stacked in the center of the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1973; jumping 14 Greyhound buses in Ohio in October of 1974 and soaring over Snake River Canyon in Idaho in his rocket powered “skycyle” that same year. They rival some of his more spectacular spills, including his jump over the fountains at Caesar’s Palace in 1968 and his leap over 13 double tiered buses in Wembley Stadium in 1975. By the time he retired in the winter of 1976, Evel held the Guinness Book of World Records for the most broken bones and had also captured ABC’s Wide World of Sports largest TV viewing audience with his Ohio jump in 1974. Evel has also been immortalized in the Smithsonian Institute with his motorcycle and memorabilia display. Evel Knievel is scheduled to open mid-summer 2008 and will be located in the front of the park near the Log Flume and the Moon Antique Cars. Six Flags St. Louis has brought its guests new and exciting experiences for the past four consecutive years with the addition of Tony Hawk’s Big Spin, a new family coaster, in 2007; the introduction of Bugs Bunny National Park, our new kids area, and SUPERMAN Tower Of Power, a free-fall ride, in 2006. And, in 2005, Tornado swept into Hurricane Harbor, Six Flags St. Louis’ water park which is offered free with theme park admission.

My homepark is SF St. Louis. We went 7 years before we got a new coaster, and that coaster was... Tony Hawk's Big Spin. Plus, SFOT got a lot more flats in those in-between years than SFSTL got. We got Excaliber, S:TOP, and that's about it! We still don't have a hyper. Our Schwarzkopf was taken out years ago. So you guys don't have it *too* rough. Anyway, even though it's not a huge thrill ride, THBS is a lot of fun. That can't be emphasized enough. I'm glad our park got it and hopefully you eventually will be glad your park got it, too. I understand where you're coming from, though. I hope SFSTL's new coaster is truly thrilling. Our coaster collection is lacking, we definitely deserve a big thrill ride this year.

It's a shame such a unique coaster is coming down -- but with so much downtime what can you really expect??? If you really miss it you can always head to Missouri and ride Chiller's cousin, Mr. Freeze.

Batman The Ride at SFSTL. Every BTR seems to have a nasty queue, especially in the stairway area. It just captures the heat and makes any trash in the cans (and out) smell even worse. The stairway at SFSTL is the worst of the ones I've been in.

Whatever it is it's gonna be pretty big... no Tony Hawk here. Also there's some talk that it's gonna be a dual track racing coaster. SFSTL really deserves another coaster. Yeah we got THBS last year but for so many years we got picked over in favor of other parks that already had a large selection of big coasters. I'm glad SFSTL is getting so much attention from the powers that be.

I don't consider inverts or stand-ups to be gimmicky. I love both formats, especially stand-ups. I'm kind of surprised they're not more popular given they tend to provide large doses of both positive and negative g's. Do stand-ups really hurt people's legs that much??? I never have a problem with them. I still haven't ridden a floorless coaster yet so I can't comment on those. I DO consider flyers kind of gimmicky. They're fun for a few rides but the novelty always wears off quickly for me. I don't hate the format but I don't find them to be very substantial either. I don't think the format will have much longevity. That is, I don't think 20 years from now they'll still be building new ones nor do I think many of the the existing ones will still be around. (BTW, yes, I know the same could be said of stand-ups but I personally consider them more substantial than flyers.)

At SFSTL Looney Tunes Town has been gutted (it took less than a week - things are moving quickly), paint markings are everywhere, and some of the structures near the Log Flume are supposedly being demolished. Definitely looks like we're getting another new coaster! Plus... (9/4/07) Tons of little red survey paint markings have been spotted all over the place where the new rumored coaster is expected to go. You can see photos of it posted to Negative-G. While some are still speculating it may be their own version of Goliath, I wood-n’t count on it. http://www.screamscape.com/html/six_flags_st__louis.htm Not sure how I feel about SFSTL getting another woody. We need a big steel coaster.

Good point. And a disk-o would certainly be a welcome addition. I just think it would be great if SFSTL did get two new coasters consecutively. The park hasn't gotten near the amount of support that the other 2 original SF parks have gotten (or most of the other SF parks, for that matter). We could really use a new, BIG coaster to truly reignite interest in the park. Getting Big Spin was great - it's a fantastic coaster that's much better than I thought it would be. But with that out of the way, it's time to give enthusiasts something to shout about. Of course "No More Goliath's" Shapiro won't let that happen.

Looks like Six Flags St. Louis may be getting a new coaster for 2008... New Attraction - Rumor - (8/27/07) Screamscape has heard that there may have been a change of heart and instead of getting a copy of Coobrila next year, Six Flags St. Louis may get something much better “with wheels that ride on rails.” I like the sound of that, and after adding the family friendly Tony Hawk in 2007, perhaps they’re looking to add something with a little more punch in 2008. http://www.screamscape.com/html/six_flags_st__louis.htm

I don't see how you can say this without having actually ridden in the trains. You never know, you may actually end up loving these trains.

It looks like it'll be a great coaster! The first drop should be intense and the horseshoe looks fantastic. The high, tight banking on B&M hypers is unbeatable. I think it's unfair to compare the seating to Deja Vu's. The B rows on DV truly seperate you from the other person, you can't even see them. Also, to get into the B row seats on the opposite side of the gate you have to go either behind your row, interrupting the following A row, or in front of the preceding A row, interrupting them. These trains are completely open, so there will be no interruptions of other rows, and you can still clearly see your co-rider, and even interract with the people in front of you somewhat. I think these trains could turn out to be very popular. The only thing that really worries me is the big MCBR coming *right* before the helix. But check out that transition after the helix... looks pretty damn cool! I will say the name is ridiculous, but oh well. At the end of the day it's the actual ride that matters, right?

Georgia Scorcher yesterday afternoon. Great ride! B&M need to get back into stand ups.

I only have 51 credits, and I may be hitting up SF Over Georgia in a few weeks, but at this point my list is: 1. The Voyage (Holiday World) 2. Raging Bull (SF GrAm) 3. Deja Vu (SF GrAm) 4. The Boss (SFSTL) 5. Batman The Ride (SF GrAm) 6. Batman The Ride (SFSTL) 7. Chang (SF Kentucky Kingdom) 8. The Legend (Holiday World) 9. The Beast (Kings Island) 10. Vortex (Kings Island) Honorable mentions go to: The Raven (Holiday World) The Racer - backwards (Kings Island) Firehawk (Kings Island) Tony Hawk's Big Spin (SFSTL) Mr. Freeze (SFSTL)

I agree! If they could work out all the kinks I would love to see this Vekoma model become as prolific as their SLC's. Here at SFSTL we're in dire need of a hyper, but at this point I'd be just as happy with a (dependable) Deja Vu.

Oh I hope not! Deja Vu is a great coaster, it would be a real shame to see any of them taken down. Besides, aren't they slowly but surely getting all the kinks worked out on them? From what I hear, the only one still having major problems is the SFOG one.

Hi everybody! I'm John. I live in southeast Missouri so my homepark is Six Flags St. Louis. I grew up riding Screamin' Eagle, and Ninja was my first looper so roughness isn't too much of an issue for me. I've ridden 51 coasters at this point. I've always loved coasters but since my family never did much traveling when I was growing up I never got to go to any theme parks besides SFSTL. Once I was older I got busy with school and stuff and didn't have much time for coasters but now I have a job that affords me lots of free time and I've been making up for lost time. My top 3: 1. Voyage 2. Raging Bull 3. Deja Vu I'm also a huge music fan and love Madonna, Air, Beck, Bjork, Goldfrapp, and many, many more artists. I have a boyfriend whom I love very much and hope to spend the rest of my life with. He gets my nerdy coaster geekiness because of his nerdy anime geekiness. Also, I think giraffes should be the new donkey...

Here's a few pics taken with my crappy phone camera. You can find much better pics on the net of the coasters than the ones I took so I'll just post a few non-coaster pics... I love when large bodies of water are located right in the middle of theme parks. Atmosphere is a good thing. I also loved the pond area by Viking Fury... And I'm a sucker for a nice disco ball, especially when it's gold and inexplicably located in a food court called Festhause!

I figured invoking the image of Madonna would do the trick. If nothing else it gave me the opportunity to bring my two loves (coasters and M) together in one place. Now if only I could get my boyfriend into coasters...

"You may remember me from such telethons as Out With Gout '88 and Let's Save Tony Orlando's House!"

Corona. With a lime wedge if available but it's not necessary.

Gus Gus - David