Skycoastin Steve

Even though it's only a couple days after the NE trip ends, I'm sure I can day trip it up to Hershey for this. Storm Runner ERT!

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on theming. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. Does it help in some cases? Sure. Can it turn a crap ride into a great ride? Hell no! Case in point: the Dark Knight coasters. ^Edit: I'm not sure on what crazy planet KK would ever be considered as having more theming than TTD. Cedar Point might not go all out with theming on many attractions, but TTD has dragster-styled trains, grandstands, the Christmas tree lights both next to the launch track and on the tower, the soundtrack before you launch, the start/finish lines, and the speedometer. KK has.............?

Apparently it takes at least a year and a half.

^Yeah, that just looks like the computer generated logo superimposed onto a wooden sign.

It's like the little dive coaster that could!

^BDubs overrated??? Blasphemy!!! Now I will concede that their service is abysmal, but the wings are always delicious. And ya know, BDubs is right next to Taco Bell, so they're the same distance down 250.

Taco Bell and Buffalo Wild Wings were always open late the two years I worked at CP. I'm not sure how much of my pay from CP went to those two places, Steak and Shake, and the Subway in the rec center, but it had to be at least 50%.

^Well that just sounds bizarre.

I've seen stories like this before, and I guess policy is policy, but I'll take my life over my job any day. Sure it would suck getting fired, but dying would be just a tad worse. I'm sure these guys will all be able to find work due to the publicity from this story.

^They might be thin, but those are layers.

Regardless of what El Toro or any other PnP feels like while you're riding it, it's stacked layers of wood with a steel rail on top of that. That's a wooden tracked coaster. Regardless if it has the steel connectors or not, it's wooden tracked. I think it's silly to not like a coaster because it "doesn't feel like a wooden coaster." Personally, I enjoy the smoothness and completely batshit crazy airtime. But that's just me.

Fantastic report! Once again, Busch has seemingly knocked one out of the park with this project. Only three short months away!

^Wasn't it chucking wheels from the very beginning? Because it wasn't that hot during the spring, it was normal temperatures you could expect in this part of the country. Sure, it was HOT most of the summer, but by that time they had already added trims and the misters to spray the wheels. The trims were added long before the temperatures started soaring into the 100s on a regular basis.

^That's interesting, especially if you read my post on the first page.

WCB and my first trip to California, opening day for both Intimidators, two trips to Kennywood, my first trip to Knoebels, two spectacular days at Cedar Point, Coaster Stock ERT on Intimidator, riding every coaster in my steel top 10 during the year. Hell, it was just an awesome season all around!

The trims really didn't do much to curb gray/blackouts, which is why I still maintain that they slowed it down because of the high maintenance costs of the ride chucking its wheels all the time. It's easy for them to claim it's for guest comfort, that way they don't have to admit that it's really chewing through wheels like ACErs at a gravy buffet. I'm sure that guest comfort was part of the reasoning, but I'll always say it was WAY more because of maintenance.

There is no theme to the audio. It's just a bunch of random movie quotes screaming at you, same as X2. At least X2 has Metallica playing on the lift hill (even if it's the most overplayed, commercialized song they have).

^I'm pretty sure the pretzel was reprofiled on Magnum, as well. Steel Phantom was also reworked into Phantom's Revenge, Drachen Fire had its first corkscrew removed a couple seasons after it opened, Batman and Robin at SFGAd had their heartline rolls removed, various old woodies have gotten modifications to their layouts during rehabs (Big Dipper, Wild One, Colossus stick out immediately). So while it's not what you could call "common practice," it's definitely happened on some major coasters before.

Apparently the last piece of track was fitted into place late this afternoon, so I guess now we have to wait and see when testing will resume. I've got to think that they'll start testing long before they test any other rides, seeing how they probably have to measure the changes in g-force and decide what to do with the trims.

The audio on Bizarro is atrocious, and that's really all that need be said.

It's just strange to me that it's in a place where there is probably considerable downward force, yet there's no support for the missing piece. They can get away with not supporting the apex of the 2nd hill, since there is probably minimal force pushing down on that part of the track, but the gap is right in the middle of the incline going into that hill. I suppose it'll all be immaterial before too long and we'll see exactly what's up.

Alrighty, as promised, I went down to KD today and snapped some photos of the progress of I-305's reprofile, and it looks like it's coming along well! From what I could tell, most of the track is installed, and there's only one visible gap. It looks as if there will be a flat stretch after the drop, then the turn starts out wider, and almost immediately starts climbing around the rest of the turn and into the 2nd hill. The entrance into the 2nd hill is much more drawn out than before, so it'll be interesting to see how this affects the airtime. If I had to estimate the height of the new entrance into the 2nd hill, I would say it's anywhere from 50-75 feet off the ground now. But anyway, here are the pics. Overview of the site. You can see how much more elevated this portion is now. Someone was working on the 2nd hill. And now he gets his own photo! I'm really intrigued by how this will change the experience and whether or not they will actually remove all the trims. Here's the gap I mentioned, it doesn't look like a normal gap that you would see during construction. That makes me wonder if there might have been some miscalculation there (which seems unlikely given the size of the gap). So who knows...... Maybe it's a ramp! Here you can see that the start of the turn is installed already. And you can see how quickly it starts climbing. More of the beginning of the turn. The outermost portion of the turn. THIS WATERMARKED PHOTO IS MINE!!!!!

I'm actually about to head down there right now and I'll report back later with some photos.

^And not that it has any correlation or anything, but Rattler is the most disastrous piece of trash I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing in my entire life. Soooooooooo yeah.

I love people who get their panties in a wad because someone was mean to them on the internet.