bgwfreak

So I've been digging through the photo albums and scanning a bunch of stuff and here is the 2nd of my threads devoted to "retro PTRs". This contains photos mostly from my 1st trip to Carowinds (opening year in 1973)... I was 1. Yes I just gave away my age. I've got some from 78 or 79 I need to upload as well. Look out for another crazy retro PTR coming soon. Enjoy! Here's the first one if you want to check it out. http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27389 And fianlly I bring you another lost ride...the Speedway. I miss these. They were located where Vortex is now. Say it altogether. Awwwwwwwww! I couldn't sit on my Mom's lap today! How many of you can say you walked around Carowinds with no pants on!!! It is kind of weird the mascots Carowinds used to have. Yo. I'm Wes' brother and I'm standing here with a big pig. Get away from me kid! You can't stand with the big!!!!!! Our only coaster to be removed. The classic White Lightning (taken around 78 or 79). Scooby Doo...er...Fairly Odd I hate this name Coaster. Back in the day and with a differnt color scheme. To think I was too scared to ride this when I was a kid. There it is!! Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch train!!! Ok, I'm not sure if that's the one, but one fo the two trains that ran at Carowinds ended up at Neverland!!! Weird huh? Meteroite (now known as Scream Weaver) in it's old spot on the other side of the park (I think near where Top Gun's helix is today). Kaleidescope. One of the few remaining rides from the early days. It's still in the same spot too! A very non-PC (politically correct in this case) ride. The redneck jallopies!!! Ok, they werent' called that. lol Goldrusher back in the day. Notice that the sky buckets ride was still working (see the cables?)??? You all know this spot if you've been to the park. Yes, that's me in the stroller. Check out the fros! My dad and brother are in the back of what used to be called the Powder Keg Flume. Now it's been Nickefied. So here's my brother, age 5 at the double-decker carousel that unfortunatley only lasted one season. So let's start with a classic. For those that don't know, when the Borg invaded the island at Carowinds...they sunk the Carolina Queen.

Awesome TR! And I thought I took a lot of pics. So did you not stop by Beech Bend? Rumbler is a great little coaster.

IB looks awesome. I hate I haven't gotten up there yet. I should have gone there instead of SFStl. lol ^ I'm so jealous. I have yet to ride one of these. I know it's an Arrow, but I still want to try one out before they are all gone.

Bite your tongue. Nothing has been released in the way of coasters.

I love that DELERI-M ride! Nice TR Zombie Ted.

Very nice pics. I so want to go to a German fair someday. Too bad I don't like beer.

Uh oh. South of the Border better look out for that "park". They might take their title of worst US park away! WHY CAN'T YOU TAKE PICTURES? You're going 3 mph!!!

I've been on many rides all by myself. I've gotten rides on Phantom Flyers and Scream Weaver at PC. I'm sure I got a coaster ride or two by myself as well during Carowinds ERT this summer. Platinum Passholder ERT is awesome! I hope CF doesn't kill it.

^ No amount of hype will equal Voyage. lol Ok I shouldn't say that, I tried to go into riding it my first time with no expectations. Some will say it's too intense others will love it. Myself pesonally it's my favorite wooden coaster right now, but the final 1/3 is just a tad bit too intense for my taste. It's not something I could marathon on.

^ For saying that I will say BAM! He is kinda weird.

One of our posters on TN found a press release. Go here ------> http://www.thrillnetwork.com/stories_view.php/1678/huss_rides_files_insolvency.html

Best food oveall: Busch Gardens Europe Best restaurant: Trappers Smokehouse - BGE Best themed restaurant: Jurrasic Park restaurant at IOA (can't recall the name, it's the big one with the T-Rex in the middle). A close runner up with be the Fest Haus at BGE (can you tell I like BGE?) Best Cotton Candy - Cedar Point

All of my high res versions are online now! http://community.webshots.com/album/553007260qcWIqY I took around 100 pictures and some came out nice that I didn't include in the TR. So check them out.

Awesome TR as always! I didn't know these still existed! We used to have one YEARS ago.

Thanks guys. I'm slowly getting the high res versions up and hopefully will have all 100 loaded in the next day or two. You can check here now for what I have ready and later as well. http://community.webshots.com/album/553007260qcWIqY

Woo hoo! I didn't know McKinney lost. She is a disgrace to our government. That pic at McDonald's was in SC somewhere, so maybe they were having Primaries as well. NC always has theirs in May so I was a little confused. lol And back on topic, the weather yesterday wasn't too terribly bad for the 2nd week of August in Atlanta. It was hot, but it cooled off a little bit later in the day.

Set #3 And I leave you with obligatory shot #5. It was a great day at the park, Atlanta traffic is another story. That is all for now. Here's Jonathan stealing a 5th ride on Goliath. I'm not bitter! Really I'm not! I got a total of 4 rides and this brings my Goliath "time travels" to 19. Jonathan seems to have a fan. Obligatory shot #4. This really is a great ride! Obligatory shot #3. As I said we skipped Batman and headed back to Goliath for rides #3 & #4 (well some of us didn't get a 5th ride but more of that to come). Here I am wet (from Thunder River) and getting tired of Atlanta heat. Next we headed to Gotham City and hit my favorite Schwarzkopf. Obligatory shot #2. The crowds were very small for the most part (which is why we can't figure out the Superman line) oh yeah, the spider made them do it. So we went on Monster Plantation! It was a 2 minute wait! Goliath we see you peaking over. This rapids ride was kinda short, but very good and it got you SOAKED! (Non-Dan friendly). Notice how hard the SF op is working. I'm so glad they told me how to use a seat belt. And no faceless persons may hold children. Out of the 15 or so times I've been to this park I had never ridden Thunder River. This and Deja Vu were our longest waits of the day at about 30-45 minutes. Oh... it's just the line for Thunder River (rapids ride). The trees must get cold here in Atlanta. An African safari? Where could we be? A tropical rainforest?

Next set of pics... So the bumper cars were a lot of fun, but the crew was so SLOW and the building they were in must have been 100 degrees. Jonathan is all... "I think I want to go on the bumpercars. But I'm not sure." Jonathan getting in my shot #3. So the spider made us go to Superman, uh this line is WAY to long. Skip it. This spider came down to attack people that didn't buy a Superman shirt (it's a new Shapiro policy, don't buy a t-shirt...get attacked by spiders). Obligatory Superman shot. More pain ensues. GASM was VERY rough in the back. How did anyone do a 30 hour marathon on this thing? The turtles are all "We told you not to go on Ninja!" No! More pain is about to start. Lunch is done and we decided we needed some Vekoma death machine pain. Since April this thing has gotten VERY rough. Hmmm...is a Six Flags restaurant really a safe place to store that? So after Vu we headed to lunch...hmmmm what do those cups spell? Hey Batman! We won't be riding you. lol I really didn't feel like walking the mile long queue. Here I am happy to be riding Vu for the 3rd time (since 2001). It was down most of the times I've been to the park. Yay for operating Vekomas! Ok, just operating giant boomerangs .

Jonathan wanted to do a quick little trip to Atlanta and hit Goliath (since he had yet to ride it). So I tagged along (drove) just to get some more rides on my 2nd favorite steel coaster Goliath, my favorite Schwarkopf Mindbender and hopefully a ride on my favorite lawn ornament (Deja Vu). By the way this was yesterday (August 8th). Grrr! I am Goliath and I will chop your car's roof off! Gimme some candy. Yay for giant B&m coasters built over the entrance to a park! Alright we make it to the park. WHAT!?! They only have one line to pay to park! Carowinds has 4 open on the deadest day ever! To their credit they did get a 2nd one open (after we were parked). We FINALLY survive I-285 and make it down I-20. Hmmm... I wonder what that is. Yay! We hit Atlanta traffic. We sat through 40 minutes of traffic (both ways) just trying to get to the park. Fun! Ahhhhh...this truly is an Elissa friendly TR! We couldn't figure out why they wanted us to vote. November is 3 months away! for Pedro??? Where could we be eating breakfast at? So I went to bed the night before at 8:00 because I knew we would have an early start. I ended up waking up at 2:00 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep. Here you see what time I started getting ready to go... So we went to see if the lawn ornament was open. To our shock it was!!! Twice in one year it's open when I'm there! :O Foghorn heard we were in the park, so he left. Here's Jonathan jumping in my picture #2. Free Fall was running, but we decided to skip it today. GA Scorcher was jealous that I was taking a lot of Goliath pics, so I took one of him. We were pleasently shocked to find the park running 2 trains on ALL the coasters all day long. (except for Deja Vu, which ran 3) Here's Jonathan jumping in my picture #1. Sadly it appears that Acrophobia has been hit by lightning (again) and is down for the rest of the year (again).

Looks like the park is doing quite well for itself. I remember Borg getting stuck a la X Flight a couple times like that.

Funsville looks like South of the Border v2.0 or something. Hopefully I'll get down to Pavilion on the 17th (hopefully there won't be a hurricane a blowin').

Doesn't the one at SFNE get stuck a lot too?

Ok, what park would this be at? There's only like 3000 parks in the world and I'm not well versed in every single park.

Bankruptcy doens't mean the company will go under, it just means they need help in making their payments. They usually just reorganize their finances and then come out of bankruptcy.

Uh Oh. Looks like I started a trend here. lol If that wasn't enough for you guys, check out mine... http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27131