Coasterbash! XXI

[kidcoaster 2]

So here is a round up of the events of Coasterbash! XXI

 

So after noon me and my friend Corey head down to Pittsburgh, so before bash started we decided to take a trip by Kennywood to see the progress on Skyrocket. Not much work was going on when we passed but you could see that most footers are already poured, and the track and supports are all sitting in the parking lot ready to go. Besides that not much to report except that King Kahuna is completely gone already.

 

Moving on we finally arrive at Salvator's (After only one wrong turn). We park and head on in and grab our seats. The place was already packed and was a great atmosphere lots of excitement and jokes being tossed around. After hitting the "Brochure Buffet" and the sales tables the presentations start.

 

The first part was a video to remember Gary Baker passed away recently who was not only a great ACE member but an important part of Kennywood aswell. We all gave a moment of silence than moved on to the opening video followed by New Coasters of 2009.

 

The first presenter was Jeff Croushore of Idlewild who opened up with inviting someone from the audience to come up and sit on a rocking chair facing the screen (Also the video Jeff used was one of Robb's videos so go buy one of his DVDs!). Than he found out they have never been to Idlewild so he gave her a ride on the Rollo Coaster by moving the chair to the ride. It was pretty entertaining.

 

He mentioned some things going on around the park including the Circus show returning. And he told about some of the acts it will feature including the "Wheel of Death" and the dog woman (Which Jeff showed some over whelming excitement for). Sounds like it will be a great attraction returned for familys. Also another change most haven't noticed which is their new Logo which is only a smaller form they dit to better fit in advertisement material.

 

Next up was Marie Ruby who is the Ride Operations manager at Kennywood and has confirmed that the Sky Rocket will be open for Coaster Con! She showed us a construction video on the progress going on at the site. She also confirmed that there will be no Lo-Q's this year and also that the hight requirement for Sky Rocket will be 54".

 

Next up was Jack Moyers of Conneaut Lake Park who talked about all of the progress going on with the "Lady". The hotel is being renovated and work is progressing on the Boardwalk. He also talked about how vital volunteers are to the park and how they held the park together during all the problems. Great Stuff

 

Also a surprise after was when several of the ACE Executive Members got up and announced that ACE is giving CLP $5,000 towards the Blue Streak restoration fund!

 

After Dinner Jeff Filicko of Kennywood was up and gave some more info on the Sky Rocket and shared some photos of King Kahuna being taken apart. He than shared some of the Bloopers of Marie's construction tour video. And than featured a video of Rick Davis who runs DAFE during his day as an Intern at Kennywood (Which he won at last years Coasterbash!). It was themed to the apprentice and in the end Rick was fired (Sorry Rick).

 

Not much else to report until Steve Gorman of Waldameer took the stage and talked about Waldameer's Racoon problem. He mentioned that during last off season they were doing work on the breaking on RF2 and they loaded the ride up with bags of Corn. While racoons started to find out out about it and at first it was no problem but than they were chewing up the lap bars to get to the corn. he had pictures of it and they tore it almost to the metal. He also told about finding half a racoon which the RF2 must of ran over on the bridge.

 

Another incident he told about where he got a call from the comet operator that the train never made it back to the station. So he ran up and found the train stuck because a racoon stoped the car and ended up getting tangled in the wheels. So they pulled it out and pushed the car back to the station. Interesting stuff but with all this talk about Racoons I thought it was Idlewild!

 

He also talked about the new season passes and the "Year of the Barcode" as he described it. Meaning the new points system and he talked about why they are switching mostly due to some of his staff not bothering taking tickets. I think it will work for Waldameer but in the process of hooking up the system through the park they seemed to have knocked up the power cable for the paratrooper "oops".

 

All in all the night was great big thanks to Bill Linkenheimer and everyone else for this great fun filled evening. Definitely looking forward to next year. Looking forward to Coasterbash! XXII

Edited March 7, 2010 by kidcoaster 2

[kpbook04]

Slight correction to kidcoaster 2's report:

 

The pledge to make a donation by ACE to Conneaut Lake Park was $5,000, not $50,000.

[kidcoaster 2]

Sorry Dave must have heard wrong. Its fixed now.