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Kings Dominion (KD) Discussion Thread


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it's an intriguing scenario when deciding whether to go with a more "bland" company that will 99% of the time build something that seems guaranteed to open on time, to a company known more for pushing the envelope a bit, and producing more radical ideas and rides over the last half of the decade.

This is exactly it. It's not as though the parks go into buying a ride not knowing what challenges are going to come out of it. Same thing when you buy a car. I know that when I buy a Toyota Corolla I'm not going to need to do anything but oil changes to it for the entire life I have the car.

 

But if I bought something like a Porsche Carrera GTS, I know damn well I'm going to have to put a lot more work into that thing to make sure it's in top form all the time.

 

And on top of that, it depends on what the park needs. I don't think Kings Dominion would have done so well with Carowind's Intimidator. Not with Apollo's Chariot an hour away and Superman: Ride of Steel not far north.

 

The park absolutely needed something that would blow people away to make them talk about it. And if it takes a total of 2 years for i305 to really become a reliable "signature ride" for that park, then I think it's time and money well spent.

 

i305 is the kind of ride that will hold over a park for 10 years. And when you have an investment like that, you want to make sure you get it right...even if it takes a bit of time.

 

--Robb

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^I was as happy when KD decided to take a chance with I305 as I was when BGW took one with DarKastle. Both rides are unique for this region and are great additions.

Exactly. I'm willing to bet that if they built your standard fare B&M Hyper, like Intimidator or Diamondback, there wouldn't have been 300 pages worth of discussion...

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This sounds like a really positive development for I305, hopefully I'll be able to get down there next year and check it out.

 

Does anyone have a feel for what impact I305 had on attandance at KD this year?

it was a lot busier than last year so I would say it had a positive effect.

 

I heard the park was making millions (of dollars) more than predicted... (rumor) but sounds legit.

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(first post ... Hi!)

 

RE: attendance, definitely was more crowded. Still plenty of times it wasn't actually crowded, but comparatively, absolutely. I think change started as soon as the announcement in '09, oddly enough.

 

When you are building a ride as big as i305, that in many ways was a prototype, you should expect changes, even as big as pieces of track being replaced. This is not something new, and happens more often than you think.

 

Yeah but here we're talking about something like 500' of track being replaced by 600' of track!

 

To answer the question, I'm sure the park and Intamin have worked something out, and I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't part of the original contract for the ride.

 

One thing to consider is it is in Intamin's benefit to try experiments and learn from them, although this is a biggie. 305 certainly isn't that last gigantic or intense coaster they intend to build.

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^There have been as large (or larger) reprofile projects in the past. Three come to mind:

 

1. Removal of a big chunk of the long-defunct Drachen Fire at BGW (slight improvement)

2. The transformation of Kennywood's Steel Phantom into the Phantom's Revenge (which made a really bad ride into a great one)

3. Removal of the loop from Son of Beast (which didn't help at all)

Edited by cfc
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A few members of KDFansite got the chance to go to Kings Dominion to check out Intimidator 305's construction, markers for the new Snoopy's Starlight Spectacular, rides/cars in storage, and the whole Wave Swinger gone...

 

http://www.kdfansite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1722

 

An update video is supposedly coming soon and will be uploaded to Kings Dominion's YouTube page, youtube.com/kingsdominiontv.

 

Only 3 months and 18 days until the new version of Intimidator 305 opens!

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Something tells me though that even if the widening of the turn means no trims, and making an awesome ride even better, the new complaint is going to be "The turn is too wide!"

 

I certainly do look forward to seeing how this ride will be next year though after they make the adjustments to it though. Might be willing to go opening day even.

 

-Gary

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Something tells me though that even if the widening of the turn means no trims, and making an awesome ride even better, the new complaint is going to be "The turn is too wide!"

 

I certainly do look forward to seeing how this ride will be next year though after they make the adjustments to it though. Might be willing to go opening day even.

 

-Gary

 

Well, I don't think "the turn is too wide" would be much of a worthwhile complaint, but seeing the things people do complain about, I wouldn't say it's impossible that SOMEONE on the entirety of the internet would have such a complaint.

 

So let's play, "predict the complaints."

 

Realistically, I can see several areas where we might see complaints, but they depends on exactly how this reprofile enlarges the turn. If they go with the quick and dirty method of simply adding straight track to extend the entry and exit points of the turn enough to fit the increased radius, someone will inevitably complain that these straight sections are "boring."

 

If they go with a better (and more fitting with the rest of the ride) method of a slight (10-degrees?) left turn at the bottom of the drop into a rollover to the right, followed by a wider 290 degree right turn, ending in another roll left and another 10-degree left turn exiting and pulling up into the 150-foot hill, people might complain that the transitions are too violent (hopefully they won't be, but you never know.) Side Note - If done right, these transitions could also be spots where they could engineer in little extra hops of airtime, which would make a great ride even better.

 

Even if the reprofile is perfect and the trims are removed from the first drop completely, the ride will likely still need to be trimmed somewhere. On opening day last year, it was trimmed on the up-slope of the "third" hill. I don't think enlarging the turn will scrub off enough speed to completely remove a need for slowing the ride down prior to the rather violent transition right near the end of the ride, which was the most aggressive spot in the ride in all configurations. No matter where these trims are placed, somebody will complain about them.

 

Also, enlarging the turn will inevitably cause the ride to be somewhat (probably very slightly) slower going over the second hill than it was opening day next year. Someone will undoubtedly complain (probably unreasonably) that this "kills" the airtime there. Hell, there were people who complained that this ride had no airtime on opening day last year, despite the sustained 3 seconds of ejector air the ride had going over that hill on opening day.

 

Did I miss any?

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After hearing the interview with John Pagel I am left with the feeling that the drop will be trimmed less. I think the final version of I-305 will have a trimmed drop because of that turn. I hope they just let the ride remain intense, and it would be reguardless of the widening of the turn, just let it be what it was meant to be. I am going to ride this summer no matter what they do but for me it would be a real dissappointment if they trim that drop.

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Was the turn really that intense? I've never ridden Intimidator 305, but it seemed like people were making too big a deal out of this whole schtick.

 

I would have much rather had some days run the trimmed version and some days run the "OMG this is so intense but good that you will wet your pants" version. That way, the coaster would please everyone.

 

Or was it train/track stress, like Maverick's heartline roll?

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Was the turn really that intense? I've never ridden Intimidator 305, but it seemed like people were making too big a deal out of this whole schtick....

 

It was definitely really intense. Many people, including Robb, were greying/blacking out on it. If you watch the video on YouTube, he mentions it. Some people didn't mind it too much, but many did which led to adding the trims. If they can make the turn wide enough to remove the trims and get the ride back going to what they had originally intended, thats better, especially for Jeff Johnson.

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This sounds like a really positive development for I305, hopefully I'll be able to get down there next year and check it out.

 

Does anyone have a feel for what impact I305 had on attandance at KD this year?

 

The park was quite busy during most,if not all of my visits in 2010 with haunt on the 2nd to last day being jam packed.

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The turn was very intense. I met a girl that passed out on the trimmed version, by which I mean she didn't remember anything from the curve to the final brake run. That has happened to some people on lots of different coasters, so doesn't mean so much except again, that was with the drop trimmed. I came the closest to that happening to me on the untrimmed version, when I was hot and not feeling that good. Almost every other time I rode it untrimmed, I was sure to ride Backlot first to make sure I was up to it, also sometimes made sure to get a snack if I felt a bit low blood sugar-ish.

 

Thing was the duration of the force. Think of the strongest Gs on a coaster that last longer than a second, maybe not even that strong, but make them last 5 times as long. A weird thing I've experienced on Backlot's helix is to start graying out right at the top -- the force is decreased by that point but not enough after surviving the rest of the helix. You could be fine halfway through 305's turn and still start graying out at the end -- or a lot of times more a "tunnel vision" where you lose all peripheral vision, which seems different than shorter duration high-G response.

 

It's not something a lot of people can't handle, but why have your most expensive coaster not ridable for some people that fine on everything else?

 

But don't forget about the wheels. Not only was wear high, a wheel would get rough like it lost a little chunk and then went downhill from there rapidly. There was bits of melted wheel on the back of a rear seat for a while, and I think that was post-trims but before the wheel sprayers. Trying to operate the thing in hotter weather was hard on both the wheels and the passengers. It will be worse once the track gets some age on it, too. They downplay this concern but I think it really was deciding factor.

 

After hearing the interview with John Pagel I am left with the feeling that the drop will be trimmed less. I think the final version of I-305 will have a trimmed drop because of that turn. I hope they just let the ride remain intense, and it would be reguardless of the widening of the turn, just let it be what it was meant to be. I am going to ride this summer no matter what they do but for me it would be a real dissappointment if they trim that drop.

 

I wouldn't mind so much if there was a trim right after the drop. It wouldn't interfere with airtime and you'd hit 95 MPH for .1 second. But the speed does neeed to be increased on the 150' hill to at least "floater" air, so the turn still needs improvement. It would be very prudent to include some new spots suitable for brakes, even if not used, you can't put them on a turn or twist and there are almost no suitable spots that don't affect airtime. If there were 3 different trim locations, they really could each be almost unnoticable. Another approach would be to make sure the part of the track replaced doesn't need them, but have provision near the the end of that section. Again, this would allow less braking at the 75' hill -- and also maybe putting those after the hill in the valley or the next rise. Anyway, yeah, I'm somewhat concerned the changes won't be enough to avoid trims on the drop completely.

 

Realistically, I can see several areas where we might see complaints, but they depends on exactly how this reprofile enlarges the turn. If they go with the quick and dirty method of simply adding straight track to extend the entry and exit points of the turn enough to fit the increased radius, someone will inevitably complain that these straight sections are "boring."

 

If they go with a better (and more fitting with the rest of the ride) method of a slight (10-degrees?) left turn at the bottom of the drop into a rollover to the right, followed by a wider 290 degree right turn, ending in another roll left and another 10-degree left turn exiting and pulling up into the 150-foot hill,

 

I don't think either will be the case. The left turns would give more "work" for the turn to do so no way. The drop starts banking before any turning starts, so unless they want to rebuild 1/3 of the drop (which might require starting by removing the top of that hill and working down), it won't be straight coming out of the drop either, but the banking could stop increasing at whatever is the "cut" point and a lot shallower curve could be used for the pull-out from the drop. I think the entrance to the 150' hill is where the track will be a lot straighter and more of the connect-the-pieces adjustment will be. Seperating the vertical accelerations from the turn itself will probably be part of the improvement.

 

The latest pics show less of the track removed from the bottom of the drop than expected, which really says the changes won't be that large, but I think this just might reflect the difficulty of messing with the drop. Once the track arrives, they might add temporary braces and a crane on the drop, yank that stuff out and put in the new as fast as possible.

 

I must love to type or something ....

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