Capitalize

As far as the restraints are concerned, to some extent I think I would prefer the hard restraints as they would provide some distance away from my shoulders, allowing at least a bit more feeling of freedom and airtime. Either way, its all good. Apparently Clint got some video of a test run.

Cool pictures. I really dig the color on what I assume is zoomerang's train (glossy dark blue/purple)... Lake Compounce has been on my to-do list for a looong time... Hopefully soon I'll get around to making a trip through NE to get on Boulder Dash.

That appears to just be the test dummies in those seats. Notice the seats covered by the tarp in the pictures posted are much shorter.

I miss Kongfrontation. This sounds interesting although a bit underwhelming imo.

I almost want to make the trip to the park for the ride's opening weekend just to stand at the exit and hear everyone get off after waiting an hour or two say "Wow, that sucks compared to Vampire..." I've only been on two SLC's - Mind Eraser at SFA and Thunderhawk at GL/MA. Mind Eraser is god awful. Thunderhawk was very smooth and very enjoyable when I rode it at GL in the front seat.

Any chance they update the worst SOP ever in checking every seat belt before locking the lap bars?

I'll be going Saturday - getting my pass processed that morning before heading in to get on I305. I'm anticipating waiting at least a couple hours because I won't be motivated to wake up early AND I'll be processing my pass which can take a while on opening weekend... Meh, as long as I get on it I'll be happy.

Now I really wish I made it to SFOT over all these years to get a ride on Texas Giant before the renovation since this is obviously going to be a huge change... Should be interesting to see what ends up happening here.

While murder was definitely a wrong word choice, I still don't see how this justifies an animal not being punished for performing an act that would be punishable by death if it were done by a human. I mean, the whale apparently jumped out of the water, attacked the trainer, and slung her around in the water until she had drowned...how can you simply mark that up as an, "oops, that wasn't lucky..." and continue on about your day as if the animal hadn't done anything significant? The animal is being held against its will and is a wild animal by nature. It is inhumane to expect a certain behavior from a wild animal being held against its will and arbitrarily decide to "punish" that animal.

No Chang opened for the 1997 season and they didn't sell the park to Premier till after the 1997 season was over. Wow, that changes things a bit in my view.

Can anyone say for sure that this whale WAS in performances? First thing I read that the whale had a violent history I figured that it wasn't in the shows but kept in the back. If the whale grabbed/trainer slipped in one of the back tanks that would make a lot more sense. Any regular park goers or insiders know more as to if the whale was actually in shows? A terrible tragedy for certain.

Wasn't Chang built after Premier Parks took over?

Man that hammerhead turn around looks awesome. I'm excited to head down their over labor day weekend to get my first ride.

What about Flight of fear?! Ive been told by ride ops more than once to take my bag with me while riding the one at KI! Seems to be standard operating procedure! Does the one at KD "operate with bags" as well?! KI has that policy on most their rides - you need to take belongings with you. KD has a room for bags by the station/exit still.

Totally agree - except for me its El Toro on the first drop, and a phone instead of a quarter. For those who have been on Tornado - will the shoulder straps effect the airtime on the ride very much? How restricting are the straps? That is probably my only real concern at this point.

All the credit for ruining the good moods and optimism about OTSRs belongs to the poster named "SnooSnoo" on the kdfansite forums.

Just saw this on KDfansite, Speed Monster added the OTSRs after the pull through. So it is apparently not without precedent...

^ That's a good point I was considering last night before going to sleep. A topic of interest lately has been the height restriction for this ride. Perhaps they are going to test it without OTSRs to see how the forces effect riders and what the restrictions on height/weight can be with only the lap bar... Time will tell.

They kept them around after use with Days of Thunder; probably figured some time down the road they could do something with them. Maybe didn't think it would be this many years, but it all worked out. If you check out pretty much any parks graveyard/storage areas you'll find all kinds of random old equipment and junk laying around. For comparison, here is Pilgrim's Plunge at HW (since there were questions as to if the rides would have similar restraints). As you can see on the left side, the metallic bar is sticking out of the other side a short distance. Its hard to tell how the distance's compare because of the difference in perspectives, though. And for further comparison... Here we have Tornado, slightly further distance allowing the shoulder straps. Basically I think we will have to wait til Saturday when someone at the ACE event will bring it up more than likely. Anyone familiar with Tornado at Bakken know if they added the straps to the trains at the park? Seems very peculiar... And once more because I'm spending way too much time on google image search to better understand how intamin and the parks normally do these things... Maverick had its restraints in place during its pull through. OK, last one for now, I promise... Bakken's tornado came all wrapped up with the shoulder straps in place. So it would be an interesting first as far as I can tell if more restraints are added at the park. Definitely not ruling it out - but historically it doesn't seem to happen.

Well I take rescind my comment about them not messing with us, lol. That restraint with the belt looks interesting... Still hard to tell whats going on there.

Before the obligatory meal odds are OK, after that, close to 0%.

^ Yeah, that was the place I was thinking of.

I would like to see a smaller 4th dimension - more compact layout and such. Less forces could provide a more smooth and reliable ride.

Like Elissa I'm fairly certain I went there at least once as a very small child back when we lived outside of Denver. Looks like a nice small park, its always cool to see rides going with some snow on the ground.

Remember the old Disney animal park? It was on a small island on the lake and was essentially a small zoo from what I can remember. My first and only visit was back in 95 I believe... Anyone know what has come of that? Has it been properly taken down or is it slowly falling apart?