cackylack

When a ride tampering accident happened at the NC State Fair in October several years ago, the ride in question stayed in place until January as it was thoroughly investigated. (link to article)

Looks like they took the backs off of all the seats. Each row was a different color, with embedded LEDs. Also, they painted over the zigzag designs that were on the side of the base. I bet what they put back for finishing touches will be look great. They have to finish this, plus Rock N Roller's themed exterior (and maybe more lights on the interior) -- I predict the final product will be amazing.

Lots of testing tonight -- everything looks great. Can't wait to check it out in person

It's very likely that it's parked like that for a reason, and even if it wasn't deliberate you're still making a pretty ridiculous leap with that post. Yeah -- I said I HOPE it's not a bad sign. Nothing I said was ridiculous. That's pretty unnecessarily unfriendly of you.

From the web cam, it looked like they were testing rides today and into tonight, and that staff were being trained on them at the end of the day. The exceptions were Rock N Roller, which seems to be lagging behind in being finished, and Electro Spin, which just looks --- stuck. Earlier, the boom went around once and the seats were at the top of the rotation, and that was it, with several people standing around looking at it. And now, it looks like it's just hanging halfway for the night. Hopefully not a sign that it's down for the count. That'd be an expensive lemon.

Oops -- might need to change the name to The Valleyed Cobras.

"KD's Hurler needs to be converted Carowinds' Hurler does not. It's almost fully retracked." Yeah, and they spent a ton of dough propping up Thunder Road before it got bulldozed a couple years later. There's nothing special about Hurler (either of them) other than they are wood. Well, there's been one thing special about both of them in the past, which is that they were rough as hell. Also, Carowinds is becoming a visually beautiful park, and one of the ugliest things in it is Hurler, retracked or not. I think in the next decade, Hurler is going to get the axe (I just WISH it was sooner than later) or be converted by RMC, more flat rides are coming, hopefully a launched coaster of some sort (I wouldn't be mad if we got Kanonen from Liseberg as a Vortex replacement rather than a conversion of that into a sit-down coaster (Screamscape reported a rumor that it was coming to a park in the US), or even a shuttle coaster similar to the Gravity Group's Switchback at ZDT in Texas. I also think the rarely-used Paladium is sitting on a big piece of valuable land -- that and Rip Roarin' Rapids could be removed and a great log flume could be put in -- and the entrance to the park could be completed (it's part of a circle, and from above it looks like the side next to the Paladium is meant to be finished later). I'm not saying Rip Roarin' Rapids SHOULD be removed, but it could be integrated into a new log flume. I AM saying that the Paladium could and should also be on the cut list.

I predict 2018 will bring a Hurler RMC conversion (after KD's is done), as well as the appearance of that breakdance that was bought but not installed as part of County Fair -- maybe replacing the Yo-Yo.

Troika under construction, this AM.

I'm pretty stoked that Cedar Fair is putting this much money into Carowinds. I was hopeful when they entered the picture, as I'd been going there since the beginning (yep, last century), and there's more to do, but what they have done to this point is amazing. County Fair is precisely what the place needed, and it looks like they are going to hit it out of the park.