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RandyV

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Everything posted by RandyV

  1. Unless a wheel was somehow physically damaged, which I would have to think is an incredibly rare event, the wheel would seem to be reusable/rebuildable. Arrow used the same wheel design since the first corkscrew model at KBF in 1975. I believe the only real design change was an increase in diameter when the three 7-loopers came along starting with Shockwave at SFGAm. Shockwave, GASM (SFGAdv) and Viper (SFMM) wheels have/had 9 ribs on them vs The Vortex and earlier wheels with 5. Not related to Vortex - but as I recall, when Shockwave first opened it used the smaller, standard-diameter Arrow wheel which wasn't up to the task. The urethane was literally melting in some cases and the wheels would start squealing. When the Ops heard the noise, the ride would be shut down temporarily during the day so maintenance could take teh train out of service and replace the damaged wheel. That led Arrow to create the larger diameter wheel which was better able to cope with the stress and temps generated by the ride. Again - that's the way I understand it. I do wonder how much a single wheel would cost if S&S would actually sell one to the public ...
  2. I am sure it'll show up - maybe not this year, but eventually. The park seems to understands the importance of the ride to guests and with everything so messed up in 2020 it probably wasn't high on their list of things to do.
  3. I have to go with The Beast on this one. The trip through the terrain, especially on a clear, moonlit night, is a an experience that can't be equaled by anything or anywhere else. Even during the day, The Beast give you the sense that you really are running through the forest trying to get away from something. And with nothing but trees around you, that experience has worked incredible well for over 40 years. Don't get me wrong. The Racer is a historic, classic ride. It's a throwback to an classic coaster era that we will probably never see again. As others have pointed out, it spawned a number of great woodies of the era including two of my personal faves: Screamin' Eagle at SFSTL (also designed by Allen and, like The Beast, runs through some terrain) and the American Eagle at SFGAm (not designed by Allen, but a coaster 100% inspired by The Racer). We are fortunate KI continues to maintain these two historic rides. And love it or hate it, I would have put Vortex in that historic ride category. Let's hope neither The Beast nor The Racer ever meet the same fate.
  4. Hopefully The Bat stays around for a good long time but unfortunately these old Arrows seem to be meeting their demise more frequently. Viper at SFMM is the only 7 looper left (the last descendant of Vortex) and several suspended have already fallen. The Bat is one of the better ones out there.
  5. And FWIW - I was watching some YT vids of Vortex last night. What a great ride. Yeah - it was from a totally different era and it could beat you up - but you can't deny Arrow and KI gave us something special. I found an old video tape from April 1988 when I first visited KI as part of The Beast 10th anniversary celebration. My reaction to Vortex was pretty funny. The ride was absolutely massive compared to any steel coaster I had seen before. My home park at the time was Great America in Illinois so my only reference was the Demon. Vortex dwarfed that ride. Sorry it's gone but at least we had it for 33 years. A good run ...
  6. Thanks. A KIC member contacted me late last night and graciously stepped up and offered to stand in line and get me on the preorder list this morning while they were at the park. So my order is in. Preorder won't be in until Jan/Feb, but that's ok. My guess is KI produced a small number of these to see what the actual demand would be. Now that they know, they can safely make the rest knowing they are presold and that they will not lose money by making them.
  7. I agree with you about not using track where the ties were welded but I'll bet they could (and did) use curved track to make these. One of the post cards included with the collectible shows a picture of them cutting the rails on the curve right out of the station leading to the lift. My assumption is the collectibles are made from those rails. Otherwise, why include that particular picture? It seems like a strange choice so I think they were trying to say "Hey - your collectible was made from these rails." I completely agree it would have been easier to use straight rail cut from the station or either of the holding brakes before the station. But IMHO, making the collectibles out of a curved piece of track would probably work fine too. I don't know what the radius is for curved sections of Arrow track but cutting a 1.5" slice out of one those curves would probably be barely noticeable at the scale we're talking about. It looks like a small arc, but in 1.5" increments you probably can't tell. And congrats to those of you who got to buy one of these today. What a truly cool piece of history to own! I am really hoping those of us who cannot get to the park will have a shot at getting one online from KI sometime next week!
  8. Glad to see The Vortex fans coming out strong for their favorite ride! Anyone willing to pick one of these up for me please LMK. Got my last ride in a year ago next weekend I am in Colorado so there is no way I am going to get one in person - unless they somehow end up online Monday.
  9. Glad to see KI doing The Vortex track collectible - even if it is on the pricey side. If anyone is heading to the park this weekend and is willing to help an out of state Vortex (and Arrow) fan out by picking one of these up and shipping it to me - please PM me here. I will obviously compensate you for your trouble!
  10. And so it ends. Thanks again to everyone who is local to the park for providing updates over the last several weeks. There won't be another coaster (good or bad) like Vortex. She was one of kind.
  11. I just waned to post a quick thanks to those of you who are local and go by the park to grab pictures to share with everyone here. I, for one, really appreciate it. Sad to see the lift hill going away. The end is near ...!
  12. Looks like they have made several cuts to section everything off for the final blow. I'll bet the skyline is clear by the end of the week unless the weather interferes. I really hope the park decides to take some of the steel and turn it in to trinkets of some kind for the general public. I doubt they'd sell sections of track as even a tiny piece like the one shown on the now-removed Reddit post would be heavy. If they do decide to do that - I'll be out here on the forum asking one of you locals to pick one up for me since I'm a long way from the park but still a big fan of Vortex ...
  13. I was going through some old video tapes and found footage I shot of KC from the lower Eiffel Tower observation deck. This was taken on April 7, 1989 at The Beast 10th Anniversary event held for ACE and others. It was the day before the 1989 season opened. https://1drv.ms/v/s!AuNvMH5MAYNOks9mtQBhvIzIMNmV5Q?e=peQeQb Enjoy!
  14. Great video! What day did you shoot this?
  15. Time marches on and nothing lasts forever. Every park, every where has to remove and update rides for various reasons. Vortex held its records for height and inversions for a single year but it was far from the first of its kind, unless you were talking about its sheer size. Vortex's layout, I think we would all agree, was one of a kind and it was one of the best looking Arrow's ever produced. Like many Arrow designs, it took elements from past rides, re-arranged them and, in that era, moved them higher off the ground in order to capture records. Vortex started it, followed by Shockwave, at SFGAm (and GASM @ SFGAdv and Viper @ SFMM). One more inversion, a higher first drop and three loops higher off the ground and that's about it. This is probably what will doom the bigger customer Arrows in the long run. Vortex and it successors use the exact same designs (track, trains, etc.) as the original corkscrew welded together in 1975 and I suspect they were just never engineered for those kinds of stresses and the design was never really updated to accommodate it. Think about that for a minute. Vortex, with a 148' first drop, six inversions and top speed of 55 was executed using the the same basic design as the first Corkscrew built 12 years earlier with a 65' first drop and a top speed of 46 MPH. I know - there were some minor changes made (wheel size on the trains) but Vortex was a far more complex machine. Everyone knows the original Bat was a mechanical nightmare with inherent structural design flaws that would have required major, major rework to save. If the original Bat had survived for 10 or 15 year I think we could be more upset about it being removed (similar to BBW @ BGW). CP's Corkscrew and Gemini, compared to Vortex, are far less forceful machines.
  16. Guess the best we can hope for now is for them to post photos as they go along. I can't imagine it taking more than a week before the entire structure is leveled. Still a bummer to see Vortex come down. Not many custom Arrow loopers left in the world. As for liability - I get it. If something happened during the demo and it was caught on the camera it could create problems for the park ... it is what it is...
  17. Since they will be selling the steel for scrap they will probably just cut it up as quickly as possible. If you search for the pis of when they torn down GASM @ Great Adventure they just sort of hacked it up into small pieces to load on a truck.
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