texcoaster

Considering the one in Vienna runs just dandy with lap bars, I'd say that yes, you are in fact wrong.

Why? Why is it a bad idea to install a version of a proven ride, but make it better by increasing the comfort for the riders, while decreasing the likelihood that people will HATE IT? What could possibly be bad about that idea? ...unless you're one of those people that thinks they'll fall out if they go upside down without shoulder bars. In that case, you're delusional, because Schwarzkopf.

^^Whine, whine, whine. OK, so this year's announcement is ho-hum. I get it. But bitching because Evel Kenieval is a clone of something on the other side of the planet that 99.9999999324% of SFStL's customers have never even heard of, let alone ridden, is pushing the limits of fanboy angst. Seriously. And Freeze? There's just ONE other one and it's several hundred miles away. WOF has a boomerang. Yeah, I get it. But those other "clones" at your park aren't exactly experiences that you'll get someplace else in the area. At least you have a park.

^We get deals like that, too.... but we're also a college town. Several colleges, in fact. One year, SFOT (I think) offered season passes at a discount if your zip code showed you were outside the metroplex. That was right after SFAW closed, I don't think I've seen that since.

New trains without OTSRs. That's all they need to make this a legit "wow, look what we're getting next year" announcement. If the Vienna one hadn't been a pay-each-ride affair, I'd have ridden it a bunch of times. As it was, I paid to ride it twice. Yes, I said it. I PAID to ride and then RE-RIDE a Vekoma boomerang. ...as opposed to most of them in the US, that I'd pay to keep from re-riding.

I know that in other parts of the country, a 3-4 hour drive might seem like a lot, but it really isn't in Texas. Houston is so spread out that it can take over an hour to get from one side of town to the other... Speaking of Houston, SFFT is about 3.5 hours from here (depending on which part of Houston you start out from) and SFOT is about 4 hours away. Since Houston no longer has a major park, we've gotta go to one of those two parks for our fix. It makes sense, therefore, to keep the attractions in each park unique enough for Houston visitors to want to visit BOTH parks. A floorless coaster would round out SFOT's collection nicely, but SFFT's SKC is well-known and loved - any floorless is likely to be seen as "inferior" to SKC from day one. When Tony Hawk opened at SFOT, I heard more than one person in the GP tell someone else in their party, "it's a long line! Let's skip it, we rode that at Fiesta last year, anyway." With SFFT getting a Rattler 2.0 next year, SFOT needs something original (at least to Texas) to convince people around the Houston area to head north as well as west next year. A flyer or a wing coaster would do the trick, I think, or even a decent family-friendly attraction to lure in those folks who might not want to ride Rattler 2.0 in the first place. Sadly, the "family friendly" angle probably makes the most sense... but it doesn't jive with SFOT's Facebook post about "go bigger 2013". I guess we'll all know in a few days.

It turns out that Bizarro would fit in that space, even without removing Flashback or Chute-out - but since the move rumor is supposedly false, it really doesn't matter. A little rotation, some planning, a deep breath... bingo, it's in!

You have to take into account the timeframe. At that point (early-mid 80's) everything was keyboard-heavy synth pop or guitar-heavy hair bands. There were basically those two sounds coming out of the radio (plus country, since this is Texas) and that was it. The Judy's had a drummer and a bass player. That was it. In later years they got Barbara Donoho from The Dishes (another local band) and so there was keyboard, but still nothing like the synth pop of the day. Their sound was so utterly in-your-face unique that they became something of the poster band for the non-conformists. Also, their biggest hit was a totally danceable ditty about the Jim Jones tragedy in Guyana. How's that for contrast?

^thats because you don't know my boss.

Boss Bash sounds more fun, even if we're talking about coasters.

^5 more days.... Is SFFT one of the confirmed parks making an announcement that day? While I like the barrel roll coming off the cliff, I have to wonder if that's a good idea right after the MCBR. If they have to stop the train at the brake for some reason and then let it creep off it again, it could make that barrel roll pretty uncomfortable. I like the idea of doing it on the way up to the helix or even at the station fly-by. I like the idea of NOT having inversions on it even better.

If you missed the double-down, you also missed the most epic first drop ever on a wood coaster. That drop was incredible, and the double-down was almost as good. After that, meh. God, those Freeze-Frame photos (taken at the bottom of the first drop) were hysterical. So much terror. You could kill an hour or so just hanging out at the video screens, pointing out the people who had probably wet themselves.

I first heard my mom speak (with notable horror) about the Coney Island Cyclone in 1970. I finally got to ride it in 2003.

Looking at your graphic, it reminds me how much wasted track there is between the horseshoe turn and the helix entrance. WOW, that's a lot of plain uphill track. I'm betting that if there's an epic double-up, it will go there. SOMETHING will surely go there, as RMC isn't known (yet, anyway) for leaving that much dead space in a layout. Also, I'd love to see the horseshoe turn go back to its original double-down design. It used to fly over an airtime hill, dive down to the edge of the cliff, and then horseshoe into the quarry, rather than starting the horseshoe from the top of the hill. That could easily be an overbanked hill instead of an airtime hill, and the double-down could be resurrected.

Yes, they need to keep the tunnel, maybe they will just make it a disco tunnel like NTAG tunnels. And yes it is a small world after all. I did not think I meet any others from the land of the Pear on here. I think the tunnel is too small for an inversion, although a Hades-like extreme banked turn could go in there... As for Pearland: The Judy's, one of the most epic bands of all time, were from Pearland. In fact, you're the right age that if your parents are even slightly cool, "Washarama" was probably playing when you were conceived.

It seems that there's a deadline that looms. If he doesn't show them the money, we can put this in the SFNO pile.

This will be a steel coaster, so the novelty of a barrel roll is already lost on me with this. NOW, if they were to insert the barrel roll right after the horseshoe turn, so it flies into a barrel roll (or multiple rolls) as it heads back up to where the helix used to be, then THAT would be freaking awesome. It would be kinda like OutRun's finale, a set of rolls on an upward incline. The big difference is that these would be very visible to the park patrons rather than hidden off in the woods. It would be pretty freaky to watch, I'll bet.

If they leave the current trains on it, they could find some heavy metal-type font for the logo, put some big guitars and amps around the station, build a giant hand doing the "devil horns" index-finger-and-pinky sign in front of the cobra roll, and call it "Head Banger" They could play "Mental Health (Bang Your Head)" in the station.

If Flashback got some upgrades, it could be pretty cool. The Boomerang in Vienna with the lapbar-only trains and the tunnel between the cobra roll and loop was hella fun.

My point was that if they're doing a rehab, rather than just taking down the coaster, at some point they're going to have to do some work that absolutely points toward them modifying it rather than just removing it. The joke was that since SDC actually had coaster structure in place for months before officially announcing anything, that maybe SFFT can pretend that "there's nothing to see here, move along" even after Iron Horse track starts appearing on site and new track is laid. Sorry if the point was too obtuse.

How much work can they really do on it before SFFT has to announce something? Oh wait. Nevermind. Because SDC. Forgot. You think they'll call it a sno-cone stand for a few months?

U-bar and individual fiberglass seats, check. That description is also "shockingly close" to Gerstlauer trains that ran on MegaZeph, Legend, Villain, and others. It also fits old Schwarzkopf looper trains, as well as the ones for the shuttle loopers. Don't read too much into that. Besides, even if they are similar to El Toro's trains, they surely won't be 6-seat cars with those acrobatics in the layout!

I went last year for the first time in ages and I agree, El Toro is unbelievable. It actually upset Voyage as my #1 coaster for almost a month, then I went back to HW and rode Voyage again and that was that. They're both incredible rides, but for very different reasons. The things I like about Voyage are just higher on my priority list of "what makes a good coaster" than the things I like about El Toro. Your enthusiasm may vary.

I wouldn't be surprised if they got a StarFlyer, but I'd be really surprised if that is ALL they're getting. They made it a point to announce the Sept 30 announcement with the statement that it was appropriate they do so on "National Rollercoaster Day." Also, if it was just a StarFlyer, there would be no reason to remove Flashback. Not to mention that there are already StarFlyers at SFFT and the Galveston Pier. Hardly anything to get THAT excited about, being the third one in the state.

So the "Go Bigger" tease showed both Chute-out and Flashback. Could it be that they'll get Medusa from SFGAd AND a chair swing tower?