JCoaster25

Yep. Rode it in all forms. The one year I never rode it was the year it had the major accident (2006). Also the same year that the old Premier trains were shortened to 5 cars for the short time it was open that season. Was only 10 or 11 when I rode it for the first time, and I freaking loved that first ride. It seemed so impossibly large to me at the time, and I was just so overwhelmed by the intensity and aggressiveness of the ride back then, and my naive little self couldn't get enough. Then I got older, and the ride got rougher and rougher, and I started to understand what makes a good roller coaster, and suddenly it became my worst coaster I had ever ridden. That first helix had gotten especially bad. The shaking was so violent I felt like I legitimately took a hammer to my head after riding it. Still, strangely, there was something about the build-up to that loop that made the ride worth it somehow. I can remember when the train hit the midcourse brakes, there was a buzz of excitement across the train. "Oh here comes the loop!!" Someone would say. It was THE focal point of the layout, and everyone knew it, so that made that loop one of the best loops on any coaster, despite the fact that the coaster it belonged to was one of the worst ever built. It helped the ride feel oddly satisfying by the end, and that made me grow fond of the ride. Despite the horrible experience, I would always appreciate its towering presence over Action Zone, and honestly thought it would be there for years to come, until the incident happened. When the loop was taken out, that REALLY emphasized how bad the rest of the ride was. It felt like a blockbuster movie without a climax. Giant and eye-catching, yet incredibly dull all at once. Although personally, I felt like the ride got smoother with the Gerstlauer trains, but only slightly. It also felt much slower since the new trains were so much lighter and had less momentum through the course. When the ride reopened, my appreciation for the ride went way WAY down, and soon I just wanted it gone. Thankfully that was right around the time that it closed for good, and Diamondback was introduced, a proper 200+ foot coaster for the park that had something Son of Beast had absolutely none of: AIRTIME, and plenty of it. I'm glad I got to experience it, with and without the loop. It was such an infamous piece of roller coaster history. A hard lesson on what NOT to do when building a coaster. Banshee is better in every way imaginable. Tied with DB as my favorites in the park.

^I bet it'll be a hybrid of sorts. The tall footers will probably support large horizontal I-Beams, and the wooden bents will be bolted to those. This way crews don't have to pour as many footers in the ground. The Raven at Holiday World uses this method for its lake turn.

Carowinds wouldn't have gotten Fury under Kinzel's Cedar Fair either. Ouimet is truly the best thing that has happened to the company. Actually in Kinzel's biography book, he mentions that Fury was the last major coaster addition from his long term plans for the chain, so Fury was Kinzel's idea, and Ouimet could've shelved it if he wanted to, but he decided to carry it out anyway, which as we know turned out to be a great move for Carowinds. Also I agree. Ouimet is the best thing to happen to Cedar Fair. He seems to have really turned the chain around since these past few years have been record years for it.

Just finished my second ride. Guys, this might be the best wood coaster in the States. It just NEVER lets up. Better than probably 95% of the coasters in Ohio.

I really think the 2 row car thing is just a miscommunication in the press release. I don't see why GCI would use anything other than their tried and true Millennium Flyers.

I thought Millennium Flyer lapbars just came down under gravity. They are quite top heavy and don't have spring loaded resistance like PTC lapbars do. This means they can staple you pretty easily if you let your guard down. However, the seats are super comfy (almost couch like) so being stapled almost isn't a big deal. Keyword almost.

The thing that makes me laugh about that is that we've CLEARLY seen how good a coaster in No Limits 2 can look, and yet every time I see actual pros use it to show off their concept, they never seem to put a ton of effort into the final rendering so the results look cheap and rushed. Anyone remember the Skyrush announcement, and especially the Storm Chaser announcement? NL2 is really good, if not excellent for what it is. You just have to spend a lot of time on a project to make it look realistic.

Two things I would LOVE to happen. 1. Knock down the old Crypt building for a brand new large log flume next to The Beast. Call it Keelboat Canal 2.0. They could even reuse the old Crypt queue since the first part of it is actually submerged concrete, and give it a haunted theme of some kind. It would be sick. 2. I've said this before, but a 45th anniversary restoration of Racer by GCI. New trackwork, restored 1972 paint job with the red running rails and blue hand rails, LED chasers that run the whole course, and perhaps even new trains from PTC (Millennium Flyers would look REALLY out of place on a traditional out and back). Honorable Mention: Return of the antique cars.

We are now a little over 12 hours away, and it's time for me to say GOODBYE to this thread. Time to make the drive to the park. P.S. Part of me hopes that having the announcement at the Crypt building means they'll do something with it...

In a fun turn of events, I'll get to be there tomorrow! Woohoo!

So Don just tweeted this. I typed in SplinterCat in Google and the same picture came up. Very interesting... https://twitter.com/DonHelbig/status/758374564107849730

^Retweet. To make this a non-one-word post, I'll say I'm super stoked that were two days away from the reveal! I'm also hoping that there's some 45th anniversary announcements on Thursday night, too.

What if KI payed homage to KCKC in the name? Kenton's Cove Coaster Kenton's Timber Coaster Kenton's Lumber Run Something along those lines?

Hey that's mine! Lol. Thanks for the shoutout! Since we're throwing out stat predictions, here's what they are for that concept coaster. 105 feet Approx. 3000 feet long 51 mph About 1:45 The ride features 15 airtime moments. I looked closely at the bent spacing in the plans to determine where the hills would be. Personally, I love GCI coasters, and I would be ecstatic if this is what we're getting!

That would be cool, but I would still like the big log flume back even more. It's practically made for the rivertown section. What was the old log flume called back where the crypt was? Kenton's Cove Keelboat Canal. Most around here refer to it as KCKC.

^Do you mean Shoot The Rapids?

^That's awesome haha. Where's that announcement date Don??

Thanks! Yeah I have been working on a "Kings Island" park in NL2, building a few of the coasters in a space that sorta simulates the park LOL. I'm not skilled enough nor do I have the patience to do 3D modeling, so I just stick to building the coasters in the program. I built my Diamondback several months ago. There's also an unfinished Vortex, Racer, Beast, and Banshee somewhere back there. It's just one of those projects I pull out every once in a while and work on a little bit at a time. I don't take it too seriously.

This actually seems very accurate to the print. I would be happy with something like this but I still think the print looks like a pretty short coaster. For the record, I did overlay the print into No Limits and built the coaster on top of it, doing my best to scale it correctly, as well as look closely at the bent spacing to determine where the airtime peaks and valleys might be. Less dense bent spacing = airtime. More dense bent spacing = high g moments.

GCI's usually have a station along with a separate maintenance transfer building that is built similar to a station. The trains just roll through the maintenance building which doubles as an extra block.

So I decided to have some fun in NL2, and I made this coaster based on the leaked layout. Please note it's best not to take this too seriously. It's just a concept that I threw together to visualize the potential coaster that could come with the layout. I went for a realistic GCI approach, and it comes out to something akin to Prowler or White Lightning. Quick, tight, ground-hugging, and twisty. Personally I'd be pretty excited if a coaster like this would be coming to KI next year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JHsr-l9aKU

Cedar Point has the better ride collection overall, but Kings Island is a much nicer park to just hang out in. I like to call CP the NYC of amusement parks. It's large, flat, full of concrete, surrounded by water on 3 sides, densely packed with attractions, and many of the rides tower over you like skyscrapers. This visual effect is magnified by the lack of vegetation and trees, and the drive on the causeway makes the coasters look even larger than they actually are. The atmosphere of the park (minus the Frontier Trail) is very loud, vibrant, in your face, and attention grabbing. I think this comes from the fact that the park is nearly 150 years old and still uses the traditional "long midways" layout where all the attractions are lined up in a row and essentially competing with each other to lure you in. For example when you're looking down the main midway, all the rides seem to visually stack over each other. You've got Raptor and Blue Streak to the left, Gatekeeper, MaXair, and Wicked Twister to the right, and far in the distance you see the Skyride, Valravn, Power Tower, Corkscrew (somewhat), and Top Thrill Dragster all within your field of view. It's extremely mesmerizing and quite overwhelming to take it all in, especially for the first time. I personally love it. I could just sit on a bench in the main midway and just soak up the view. CP is very much a destination park; not as many locals and tons of tourists. Whenever I go, I plan at LEAST two days in the park if not 3 or more since the park is so freaking huge and there's so much to do. Also Millennium Force and Maverick are my personal steel coaster heaven, and really the only coaster I genuinely dislike at the park is Corkscrew (though it sure is pretty!). I used to hate Mantis, but the Rougarou conversion turned it into one of my favorite coasters in the park (second favorite CP B&M behind Raptor). Anyways I'm getting a little long winded here, so moving on. Kings Island on the other hand is much prettier. It's nicely wooded, more welcoming, and feels more family friendly in general. It's more modern in terms of layout, following the Disney "hub and spokes" approach, which makes it MUCH easier to make your way around the park. One of my biggest gripes with CP is its layout, especially the back half of the park, which is one giant loop without any way of cutting from say the Frontier trail to the Gemini Midway, which makes it a bit of a pain to get around, especially since the park is so large. At KI, I can walk from Racer to Diamondback in roughly 10 minutes give or take, so even though the park is fairly big, it still feels "small" in a way. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two parks is that KI has a STRONG local fanbase (take this website for example!). Where CP feels like a distant destination, KI feels very integrated in the Miami Valley community, sitting in one of the biggest markets in the midwest, and is a big part of the Cincinnati culture. The ride collection, while inferior to CP's overall, is still VERY solid and satisfying. Heck I prefer Diamondback to Magnum by a long shot, and The Beast of course is one of the best wood coasters anywhere. So all that to say, both are fantastic parks, both are equally satisfying in their own ways. If I HAD to pick one, it would be CP, but really it's apples and oranges.

Can't wait for this weekend! Hey if it rains on the first night, at least Flight of Fear will be open for ERT haha.

I work with lighting equipment a lot for my job, including LEDs. They can be almost any color you want them to be, even incandescent yellow. You can do that through either the light itself or by disguising it with a colored bulb cover. LEDs last WAY longer than incandescent bulbs, so they're the more practical choice.

Speaking of that, one of my biggest hopes for next year is a 45th anniversary restoration of Racer. New track work, new LED chaser lights running the whole course, and most importantly, restoring the original red white and blue paint job. Perhaps even new trains if the park is willing. Again, wishful thinking. Been wanting it to happen for years.