MINICoupe

I'd love to see an old Arrow suspended coaster retrofitted with flying trains that swing.

In line for NTAG yesterday, someone wondered what The Beast would feel like with an RMC makeover. While I believe that it could be a far more interesting ride as an Iron Horse with some airtime and highly-banked turns, the thing that makes the ride is that it's completely unlike any other coaster. It is more like a big scenic railway than a wood coaster and IMHO it really needs that rattling, shaking, rumbling action in the trains to enhance the out-of-control feeling. If it were smooth, I don't think you'd get the sensation of speed as much, even if the ride were legitimately faster. To that effect, even Topper Track might kill the ride. A friend of mine - not an enthusiast, but someone who does like coasters - rode The Beast for the first time two years ago. Even though we rode far "better" coasters on that trip (including everything at Holiday World), The Beast was his favorite by far. He loved that the ride felt more like a "journey to somewhere and back while trying to escape from some unseen terror" than just a series of drops and turns. We did get one night ride on it and for him it was almost a religious experience. He'd never been on anything like that before and he said that the darkness back there in the woods was "absolutely terrifying" and he could never predict which way the next turn would go. He loved the daytime rides. After the nighttime ride, he was ready to start house shopping in the Cinci area so he could ride it more often.... and he's just a casual coaster person. So in spite of the opinions of the more jaded and well-traveled enthusiasts who require thrills based on airtime, laterals, drops, etc who consider a coaster like The Beast to be "crap" due to its lack of those things, the general public (which make up the vast majority of ticket sales, after all) LOVE this ride for what it is, not what they imagine it should be. As for the "is it significantly better at night" argument, just look at the length of the queue one hour before sundown... and again after it gets dark.

Considering how it looked just last weekend, I'd be very surprised if there were any test runs "very soon." Most of the road steel was still lying on the ground and there were workers all over the layout adjusting the track gauge and such. If I had to venture a guess, I'd think testing in early April, assuming good weather between now and then. Maybe Mid-April. The above is purely speculation. However, if the park is aiming for a Memorial Day opening, they still have plenty of time. I'd think that Memorial Day would be perfect: three-day weekend, tons of folks at the park, plenty of time for out-of-towners to drive to SA and back and still have a full day at the park, AND there's an ACE event the very next weekend.

No room for a Washing Machine, but I think it's been scaled down to a Swiffer.

I have never said that I don't feel some rides are "better" at night, I just don't think any ride I've been on is "significantly" better at night. The Beast.

Also, GTs are voted on by subscribers to Amusement Today, which are by and large people in the industry rather than enthusiasts. Thus, "how much fun/thrilling/scary is it" often takes a back seat to other factors like how it impacted the park's attendance, how much downtime it had, how the public perceives it, how well it "fits" into the overall park scheme, etc etc etc. Those are factors that really don't play in Mitch's poll, it's about the ride as a RIDE. As much as I like Voyage, I think quite a few of those GTs were given due to the impact that ride had on the park as a whole. It was a truly world-class envelope-pushing coaster at a little non-chain mom-n-pop park. "The Little Park that Could" is something that really gets industry folks voting with their heartstrings.

I rode it in its second year of operation and I'd have also said forceless and trimmed to death. I rode it again last summer and thought it was great. Hardly any trim action and some decent airtime over a speedy course. It moved up several spots on my list.

Firstly, it's good to see EGF back on top. As good as Bizarro is, EGF's drop, pacing, and setting are world-class and edge it over the top for me. I was concerned that not having TxGiant on the ballot early on (and not in the drag/drop version at all) would cause it to place poorly. I was wrong. I'm not familiar with all the coasters, but it appears that Mindbender (Alberta) is the top-ranked Schwarzkopf at #23. That's a great design, but the restraints kill it for me. Riding backward is brutal. S:KC way down at #54? Seriously? That should get a substantial boost in next year's poll when hoards of folks get down there for iRat and rediscover what a great coaster S:KC really is. Riddler's Revenge at #108... it would've been lower if I'd filled out the poll after my trip to SFMM a few weeks ago. Don't remember it being that uncomfortable before, nor do I remember the headache and sore ears, either. Ugh. I don't remember what I ranked it, but it was too high. Interesting how the 20-second long Iron Shark placed higher than other, longer, more themed Eurofighters. Lesson learned: LAP BARS, not OTSRs! Poltergeist at #154, wow. It was SCREAMING last Saturday, even in the cold weather. Very intense. Heide Park's Schweizer Bobbahn and Parc Asterix's Trace du Hourra down below 200? Where's the bobsled love? Both those rides are awesome! Gold Reef City's Anaconda would've placed #9 if it had been included. TPR needs to do a South Africa coaster safari to get more riders to that worlds-only Giovanola inverted coaster. Long train, smooth as glass, wicked layout. It's in my top 5.

The old Speelunker's Cave at SFOT was/is rumored to have been closed down once after a woman complained that something fell across her neck during the ride. They closed it, turned on the lights to check, and found a snake. When they did a thorough cleaning, they pulled dozens (or hundreds, depending on who's telling the story) of snakes out of the cave!

Seems that Robb and I both agree on our Top coaster (EGF) and our bottom coaster (Goudurix) I can't imagine any coaster worse than Goudurix being allowed to carry riders. I rode Space Mtn last summer and while it was still a Vekoma, it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered from my ride on it about a decade earlier. I actually rode it twice. If it gets the new restraints, it could be a pretty good ride. Elissa... traveling Hi-Miler in your bottom section? I freaking LOVE that ride. I guess folks like different stuff. Top 5: 1. Expedition GeForce, Germany 2. Bizarro, SFNE 3. Texas Giant, SFOT 4. Anaconda, Gold Reef City 5. The Ultimate, Lightwater Valley (yes, I know... I must've hit it on an ultra-rare good day. Everyone else I know HATES this ride) Bottom 3: 3. Roller Coaster, NYNY Casino 2. Viper, SFMM 1. Goudurix, DLP The one thing I hate about the steel poll is how it groups together all the coasters of a particular type. Yes, I realize that a lot of them are too similar to distinguish, but we could group those together ourselves in the ranking. My biggest issue is the Vekoma Boomerang.... I despise most of them, but the one at Prater with the trains that have no shoulder bars is awesome! The poll asks me to put it where my "favorite boomerang" would go, but the end result makes it look like a really dig boomerangs and I really DON'T... except for that single one. Oh, well.

Many of them do. This should be easy enough to test. Would be interesting to see if it's just the woodies or if steelies get faster as well.

Yep, false on all counts. That coaster was never smooth, even on opening day. Only three planks were replaced after the hurricane, none of them load-bearing. The whole control system was toast, though, as well as the lift motor and other electrical stuff.

It doesn't hover, but it does seem to "float up". We used to put the penny on our knee and hold our hands palms down about eye level. The car would drop and the penny would fall "up" into our hands. If you caught the penny, you got to get back in line. If you missed you had to sit out until there was just one player left. The biggest challenge is to keep your leg planted on the floor. There's a tendency to flinch when the car drops, which sends the penny shooting off into space, which is most likely what you experienced.

My understanding is that the track in the tunnel has already been put in. The tunnel effects seen on the promo video may or may not be installed due to the tight clearances in the tunnel. The orig Rattler entered the tunnel more or less straight on while iRat comes in after having just done a sweeping turn. The inside of the tunnel rises sharply, then has a right turn. iRat will need to twist out of the left-hand turn as it enters the tunnel, climb, then twist right to make the exit. SPECULATION: iRat will have to bank that right turn much more than the original did due to hitting the tunnel a lot faster. The original had a heavily-used trim brake just before going over the cliff and the only speed the train had was what it got from the top of the cliff drop to the tunnel. iRat not only will be dropping from a bunny hop that looks to be about 20ft higher than the cliff edge, but it will have a pretty fast running start at it, too. The train is going to be screaming through that tunnel and therefore will likely need some banking on that right turn. OH, and in case anyone was worried... there are no trim brakes on the layout. It's full-on speed from the drop to the end.

It's actually not a great photo spot, as the only place you can see it from is the loading platform of the river rapids ride. The pic was taken from an access road that runs beneath the coaster and down to the overflow lake for the rapids. It's not accessible from the GP part of the park. It would still be fun for the riders, though, if there were fire cannons or water effects.

I think it will all come down to the speed that it can maintain throughout the course. If it hauls through the course like NTAG, then there should be plenty of airtime and that bunny hop over the cliff should work amazingly well. If it's sluggish at all and the airtime doesn't happen, it will still be really good but probably not NTAG good. Considering that the second hill and the barrel roll are pretty much the same height, the first half of this thing is sure to be blisteringly fast. The double-up after the first drop should be much like NTAGs and the horseshoe turn will likely just be a blur of speed. Rattler has always lagged in the second half, though. We'll see if it shakes that tradition.

Full disclosure: he's also a "survival camper" - the kind of guy who goes out in the woods for several days and only takes what's in his pockets. His idea of "not that bad" and ours are likely very different. I was just reporting what he said.

So NTAG had a steep learning curve, iRat looks to be pushing that envelope even further... rumor has it that SFMM's Colossus could be next. I see no reason that the two sides couldn't flip-flop back and forth from left side to right side and back several times during the ride, turning a racing coaster into a dueling coaster... although the discussion of that should probably go in the SFMM thread.

Plus, a posted pic from a couple of pages ago clearly shows the trains with yellow OTSRs

A friend of mine was on that ship and he said that it really wasn't nearly as bad as the media made it out to be... until they ran out of vodka. Then he was pissed.

Got a callback for Saturday - it was the only day I could make it. My understanding is that they'll be doing Shock Wave, Freeze, and NTAG. No word on which coaster(s) will be on which days, or even what the focus of the new show will be - other than coasters, of course.

SFFT PR guy Jeffrey Siebert invited a bunch of fellow ACErs to a backstage tour of iRat. I was lucky enough to attend and everyone is absolutely right: pics just can't convey the awesomeness and badassery of this ride... especially when shrunk down to 800X600 or smaller! Nevertheless, here are some of the pics I took yesterday: Jeffrey explains how insanely fast the train will be traveling through the clifftop section The crest of the second hill is much, much, MUCH lower than before, meaning that the train is going to blaze through the horseshoe much like NTAG races through its opening turns. Don't expect to notice any slowing down. The Bunny Hop of Death. I was assured that the train will have plenty of speed to provide total airtime all the way over the bunny hop, which goes right into a weightless free fall over the edge of the cliff. This could be the sleeper hit portion of the ride. RoadRunner Express won't interact with iRat much, now that the final helix is gone. Yep: out of the tunnel into a very Leviathan-like brake run with speed to spare. The angle of the track going into the tunnel is very different than before. There will need to be some trackrobatics in the dark (mainly a banked S-turn while sharply rising). The lighting effects may need to be scrapped due to insanely close clearances inside the tunnel. Stay tuned - it might just be really dark in there. That should make night rides wholly awesome. Reverse overbanked turn on the cliff. The entrance/exit of this thing is TIGHT. Jeffrey assured us that the trains can handle it... also, unlike NTAG, the trains will be much more open on the sides and will make you feel very vulnerable. Shot of the barrel roll and overbanks. Note the NTAG-like double-up airtime hill right below the roll! How big is it? Follow the track down the drop and look at the little speck on the track just below the cliff edge... that's a construction worker!