MitchHawker

Things I noticed: LaRonde's Goliath fell from 17 to 62t this year. Looks like 44 2012 voters had ridden it vs. only 20 in 2010. Any other reason for such a fall? Millennium Force was preferred over Maverick 112 to 97 among mutual riders but lost mutual rider comparisons to four European coasters and one Canadian coaster that Maverick won mutual rider comparisons against. Leviathan won the comparison with Behemoth 39 to 19 All of Shambhala's losing comparisons to higher ranked coasters were close, losing only 9 to 7 to EGF and 3 to 2 to Bizarro, while beating I305 5 to 1. It did also lose comparisons to lower ranked rides iSpeed, Katun, and Maverick. Much has been made of MF's 14th place finish this year. It should be noted that its 2008 and 2009 finishes could be considered lower than this year as 5 or 6 of the rides that finished above it this year were not in the poll in those years. The 12 year chart is now up on the site.

A few things I noticed in the 2012 results: Interesting that Zippin Pippin actually climbed up 12 spots to #26 this year. Yes, it only had 12 riders take the poll last year and only 22 this year but no other coaster in the top 50 gained anywhere near that number of spots in the 2012 poll. Too bad that so few have ridden it, Bay Beach is a great little throwback of a park. Wisconsin, which had zero wood coasters in 1994, now has seven of them and is the only state with three in the top 30. Any comments on the fact the Boulder Dash and Voyage were both preferred to El Toro by people who had ridden them both this year? Granted the ET v TV vote was only 6 to 5

This ballot and a couple of others did catch my eye. I contacted several people via e-mail about very low placements of "top 5" coasters. Cheri took the time to explain her placement of Voyage to me and I believe her ranking to be her honest opinion of the ride. She even made a second trip to re-ride it (based on reputation) and still found it rough in the extreme and never wants to ride it again. We need to respect her opinion. A poll is one way to find a consensus in the data, but we should always remember that there is no "correct ballot" and that there will always be many people who will disagree with the consensus in any poll. MH

It is a little disappointing that there are so many people with so much coaster experience who feel that it would be too difficult to vote and share their experience. I will take some of the blame as it should be made clear that the most important part of filling out a ballot is just doing whatever you can. If you have ridden 650 steel coasters I can understand not wanting to take the time to fill out a full ballot. How about just your top 50? Don't get me wrong, it is always better to list more of the coasters you have ridden. But when the alternative is not voting, please don't use the size of your track record as an excuse. Rank whatever subset of your track record you feel comfortable doing and send it in. Your preferences among those top 50 will have just as much impact on their ranking as someone who filled out a ballot with 300+ coasters.

Rate bombing? Invalid votes? Examples please.

One thing that caught my eye is that Troy was on 100 ballots. Balder has been there for 5 years and is not on 100 ballots. Tremors (admittedly off the beaten path) nine years and only 52 ballots. Were there some large gatherings of enthusiasts at Toverland this year?

Here is a list of all the ballots that ranked El Toro against The Voyage in chronological order. The Voyage's rank is listed first then El Toro's, then which was ranked higher and then the number of ballots up to that point (note that this number is slightly different than the "ballot number"). While it may not look totally random, there may be innocent explanations such as friends and family voting at the same time. Tie votes are listed here (six of them), not mentioned in the official results. 3 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 9 3 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 10 2 9 Voyage Ballots so far = 15 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 23 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 30 1 7 Voyage Ballots so far = 31 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 33 3 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 39 1 1 Ballots so far = 46 2 58 Voyage Ballots so far = 54 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 55 1 7 Voyage Ballots so far = 65 1 18 Voyage Ballots so far = 66 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 67 3 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 77 10 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 86 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 89 6 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 92 10 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 99 1 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 111 8 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 114 1 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 115 9 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 118 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 125 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 134 9 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 146 1 4 Voyage Ballots so far = 150 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 153 3 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 166 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 168 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 171 1 6 Voyage Ballots so far = 173 1 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 188 3 5 Voyage Ballots so far = 190 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 194 3 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 217 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 218 5 5 Ballots so far = 226 3 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 231 4 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 233 9 4 El Toro Ballots so far = 240 2 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 252 4 10 Voyage Ballots so far = 261 16 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 266 1 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 269 1 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 271 2 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 274 25 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 275 2 4 Voyage Ballots so far = 276 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 279 6 6 Ballots so far = 284 1 6 Voyage Ballots so far = 285 1 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 295 1 4 Voyage Ballots so far = 297 3 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 305 3 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 307 2 4 Voyage Ballots so far = 310 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 326 30 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 335 3 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 345 3 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 346 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 351 1 10 Voyage Ballots so far = 352 6 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 360 3 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 361 2 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 366 1 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 370 16 6 El Toro Ballots so far = 372 1 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 376 22 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 382 28 27 El Toro Ballots so far = 384 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 392 134 13 El Toro Ballots so far = 404 5 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 412 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 416 1 4 Voyage Ballots so far = 430 1 1 Ballots so far = 442 1 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 443 4 3 El Toro Ballots so far = 454 2 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 460 13 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 475 1 9 Voyage Ballots so far = 478 5 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 480 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 484 6 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 546 26 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 548 3 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 560 3 4 Voyage Ballots so far = 565 1 6 Voyage Ballots so far = 568 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 569 9 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 582 13 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 584 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 611 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 618 1 11 Voyage Ballots so far = 621 4 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 635 1 4 Voyage Ballots so far = 641 40 30 El Toro Ballots so far = 642 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 666 1 2 Voyage Ballots so far = 667 1 1 Ballots so far = 675 1 29 Voyage Ballots so far = 678 7 24 Voyage Ballots so far = 681 3 10 Voyage Ballots so far = 689 1 26 Voyage Ballots so far = 692 1 21 Voyage Ballots so far = 694 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 695 4 3 El Toro Ballots so far = 699 1 14 Voyage Ballots so far = 701 13 8 El Toro Ballots so far = 704 1 5 Voyage Ballots so far = 705 2 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 710 2 3 Voyage Ballots so far = 717 25 55 Voyage Ballots so far = 719 78 53 El Toro Ballots so far = 720 3 6 Voyage Ballots so far = 721 25 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 723 1 107 Voyage Ballots so far = 725 25 1 El Toro Ballots so far = 729 1 10 Voyage Ballots so far = 734 1 10 Voyage Ballots so far = 735 6 2 El Toro Ballots so far = 740 1 4 Voyage Ballots so far = 746 1 1 Ballots so far = 749 15 7 El Toro Ballots so far = 751 30 29 El Toro Ballots so far = 760 9 37 Voyage Ballots so far = 761 1 17 Voyage Ballots so far = 764

I agree. I stopped posting any preliminary results many years ago for that reason. Perhaps I will even have to stop posting the ballots before the final results.

2005 Internet Wood Coaster Poll voters can add their opinions on the new for 2006 woodies as soon as they ride any of them. If you voted in 2005 and did not receive a ballot for the In-Season Poll via e-mail, contact Mitch Hawker at wcoasterpoll@yahoo.com Hopefully, this poll will be helpful to enthusiasts as they plan their 2006 coaster trips. Early results for The Voyage and Kentucky Rumbler are up at http://bestrollercoasterpoll.com

I did not delete any of the ballots that put EGF at the very bottom of their ballots let alone those who just ranked it low. The only ballots that I altered were the ones that had large alphabetically ranked remnants as a result of incomplete use of the CF helper tool. What I did is just manually declare a tie for #1. It didn't seem much of a stretch as EGF soundly won the comparison with SRoS and only lost comparisons by slim margins to #16 Superman la Attraccion and your namesake coaster (#27). Your ballot and others like it certainly put those two comparisons in question, so...the least painful solution seemed to be a tie. I did not want to get into deleting ballots or e-mailing all these people who ranked EGF last for explanations. PS: The Steel Mutual Rider Spreadsheet is now online at BestRollerCoasterPoll.com