Jump to content

The Top 10 Roller Coaster Collections in North America as of 2020 (based on Vote Coasters Poll)


Recommended Posts

Here are the results of something I did just for fun. Lolz.

Something I have seen said a few times is: Kings Island has one of the best roller coaster collections in the world. However, where exactly does Kings Island stack up? Who has the best collection overall? I thought randomly, for fun, if I could find a good poll and figure out a decent points system, I could add up the points each park's coaster collection had and then determine how good people actually think the coaster collection is.

A few weeks ago, the Vote Coasters poll created by Youtuber Coaster Bot finished and shared their Top 500 results. This poll includes both steel, wood, and hybrid coasters in 1 single list- thus making it easy to use- and uses the Mitch Hawker head-to-head comparison system. It also got plenty of voters- 2,700+ people voted in the poll. So I decided to use this poll's results.

https://coasterbot.com/votecoasters-fullresults2020

As for a points system, I was watching a Youtube video about how a NASCAR season would go using the F1 points system, and I thus looked at the F1 points system and had a idea: what if I used F1 points for this? Since F1 gives points to the Top 10, and this poll ranked 500 coasters (OK more were ranked but at the time I did this only the Top 500 were visible) I translated F1's points system into this:

Top 50: 25
51-100: 18
101-150: 15
151-200: 12
201-250: 10
251-300: 8
301-350: 6
351-400: 4
401-450: 2
451-500: 1

Any coasters that couldn't crack the Top 500 are worthless and earn a park 0 points. And so I went through and found every park that had at least 1 coaster on this list located in North America- fun fact I found 80 different North American parks with at least 1 ranked coaster- and added up all the points all their coasters earned. Note: Since the Vote Coasters poll treats them this way, racing/dueling coasters do count as 2. In the cases of ties, my tiebreaker is this: which of the two parks has the higher ranked "Top" coaster? This actually came into play a few times. And using this system, here are the parks I found with the Top 10 coaster collections in the United States, Mexico, and Canada...

#10- Six Flags Over Georgia
Pts: 79

Ranked Coasters: 8 of 11

Best Ranked Coaster: Goliath- 59th

The first park to make the Top 10 is Six Flags Over Georgia. 8 of the park's 11 coasters were ranked in the Top 500, though their top coaster surprised me a bit- Goliath, their B&M Hyper Coaster, was higher than Twisted Cyclone (which placed at 69th). Goliath is also the reason SFOG was ranked in the Top 10- Busch Gardens Williamsburg actually also had 79 points, but lost to SFOG on Tiebreaker because Goliath beat Alpengeist, their #1 coaster ranked at 76th. I imagine BGW is going "grumble grumble Pantheon 2021 grumble grumble" over this.

#9- Carowinds

Pts: 80

Ranked Coasters: 5 of 14

Best Ranked Coaster: Fury 325- 5th

Carowinds makes the Top 10 pretty much on the strength of 4 coasters: Fury 325 led the charge by far, but Afterburn, Copperhead Strike, and Intimidator also did very well. Nighthawk came in at the rear end, ranked at 394th, and added a small amount of its own points. These 5 coasters combined earned 80 points, enough to beat SFOG by 1 in spite of SFOG having 3 more coasters ranked. And this is in spite of 9 coasters at the park earning zero points.

#8- Busch Gardens Tampa

Pts: 83

Ranked Coasters: 7 of 9

Best Ranked Coasters: Montu- 44th

Tampa Bay beats Williamsburg, and makes it into the Top 10 unlike its sibling. Iron Gwazi's delay into 2021 likely holds BGT back somewhat but even their 2020 coaster lineup is strong. Montu led the charge at 44th overall, but Kumba, Cheetah Hunt, and SheiKra were also fairly high-points coasters. In 2021, when you add Iron Gwazi, BGT is going to be pretty stacked and will likely rise even higher on this list.

#7- Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Pts: 83

Ranked Coasters: 6 of 10

Best Ranked Coaster: Iron Rattler- 37th

...and BGT ALSO loses a tiebreaker to another park and thus wishes its planned 2020 coaster arrived on time! SFFT already has TWO RMC's, as well as one of the world's best B&M floorless coasters. It is another strong lineup for a Six Flags park.

#6- Six Flags Great Adventure

Pts: 97

Ranked Coasters: 8 of 12

Best Ranked Coaster: El Toro- 4th

Dang! Just 3 more points and SFGadv would have joined "Club 100". One of the greatest coasters ever- El Toro- leads the charge alongside Nitro, Kingda Ka, Bizzaro, and a army of B&M coasters. Jersey Devil should be good enough when it opens in 2021 to easily get this park into the 100+ club though!

#5- Six Flags Great America

Pts: 108

Ranked Coasters: 11 of 16

Best Ranked Coaster: Goliath- 56th

...and welcome to said Club 100 and the Top 5! SFGam is a massive park, with 16 coasters (both sides of American Eagle counted) and 11 of them good enough to rank. Goliath leads the charge and has a strong supporting cast featuring Maxx Force, Raging Bull, the OG Batman The Ride, and more.

#4- Kings Island

Pts: 114

Ranked Coasters: 10 of 15

Best Ranked Coaster: Mystic Timbers- 43rd

...and here is Kings Island, aka "our" park. Kings Island is the first park on this list that actually increased its rank in 2020 with the addition of Orion, and while Orion would be the #1 coaster at a lot of parks being a Giga at Kings Island it was beaten by Mystic Timbers and Diamondback. Banshee and The Beast also ranked pretty high, and more points were added by Flight of Fear, The Bat, and The Racer to secure a Top 5 spot. But what were the 3 parks that managed to beat KI's coaster lineup?

#3- Hersheypark

Pts: 114

Ranked Coasters: 9 of 15

Best Ranked Coaster: Skyrush- 14th

...Hersheypark beat Kings Island via a tiebreaker, with Mystic Timbers 43rd place not being enough to outdo #14 Skyrush. Hersheypark also moved up with a new ride in 2020- Candymonium- as well as the fact they have a great wooden coaster collection, 2 more Intamin coasters, Great Bear, and Sooperdooperlooper to solidify their lineup. You don't hear Hersheypark get mentioned much for "elite coaster lineups" but clearly, you should.

#2- Six Flags Magic Mountain

Pts: 148

Ranked Coasters: 14 of 19

Best Ranked Coaster: Twisted Colossus- 17th

SFMM, the current park with the most coasters, should not be so shocking to be very high up. Twisted Colossus, X2, and Tatsu are 3 of the highest regarded coasters out there and you have even more solid coasters in the lineup well past that. And with 14 coasters of the 19 coasters here earning at least 1 point, SFMM got a whole lotta points. Alas, it was not enough to defeat...

#1- Cedar Point

Pts: 188

Ranked Coasters: 14 of 18

Best Ranked Coaster: Steel Vengeance- 1st

OH LAWD! 188 points!?!? Cedar Point just piles on both the quality AND the quantity. Steel Vengeance is the #1 rated coaster in the world. Maverick, Millennium Force, and Top Thrill Dragster all also made the Top 50 and were thus elite earners. Raptor and Magnum XL-200 both did great considering their age. GateKeeper and Valravn also earned solid amounts of points. Cedar Point had likely already won at this point and Gemini, Wicked Twister, Rougarou, Blue Streak and Iron Dragon hadn't even been counted yet. Sadly Corkscrew and Mine Ride earned zero points, but CP didn't need them to. SFMM would need to add TWO elite level rides just to surpass Cedar Point. This lead is crazy huge.

And those were the results I got from this system. And here are some fun facts:

Holiday World did not make the Top 10 (they were 16th), but the average points earned by each of their coasters was 14.0...the highest of any park with at least 3 coasters! For comparison Cedar Point's average was 10.44 and Kings Island was 7.60.

Wild Adventures in Georgia was the largest park in # of coasters to not score a single point. 7 coasters, no points. Embarrasing!

Kings Dominion probably would have made the Top 10 if they still had Volcano: The Blast Coaster.

Comments and suggestions for a better points system (if you have any) are welcome. If the Vote Coasters poll does another poll at the end of 2021 I may do this yet again, and we can who rose and who fell based on the new rides!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/25/2020 at 2:45 PM, matt112986 said:

Just an FYI you have Iron Gwazi under Fiesta Texas. Nice list but I'm not sure about counting racers twice. The list seems pretty solid though. Opinions will differ of course.

Oops- fixed that one a day or so ago. Thanks for pointing it out. Also I decided to look at the rankings again, this time only counting the best side of a ranked dueling/racing coaster. The results changed a little bit.

1. Cedar Point- 182

Still #1 by a lot, but lost a few points due to only 1 side of Gemini (Blue ranked higher than Red) counting.

2. Six Flags Magic Mountain- 148

No changes- both Twisted Colussus and WCR duel, but you ride both sides when you board as both loop around.

3. Kings Island- 112

Unranking Red Racer (as Blue was rated as the better side) cost Kings Island 2 points. However, KI moves up because...

4. Hersheypark- 102

The loss of a side of Lightning Racer dragged HP's rating down by 12 points, so HP went from tied with KI to 10 points back, and thus it no longer uses its Skyrush tiebreaker against KI...

5. Six Flags Great America- 102

...instead, it uses it on SFGam! Sadly for SFGam, Skyrush's 14th beats Goliath's 56th, so SFGam remains 5th. They also lost a few points due to the "removal" of a side of American Eagle.

6. Six Flags Great Adventure- 97

No dueling/racing coasters here so no change. RIP Rolling Thunder...though I dunno if that would have been Top 500 anyway due to its mixed reviews.

7. Six Flags Fiesta Texas- 83

Again no changes, as SFFT has no dueling or racing coasters either.

8. Busch Gardens Tampa- 83

Another park with no coasters that needed "removed" because racing/dueling. RIP Gwazi

9. Carowinds- 80

Grit yer teeth. Bear the load. RIP Thunder Road.

10. Six Flags Over Georgia- 79

Still gets in on tiebreaker over BGW, again no changes. Racing/dueling coasters are actually somewhat rare I realized looking this over.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

dollywood?

While it doesn't have the high end super thrills that CP or KI does, it has an awesome collection of coasters for a young family with kids in the 2-18 range.

Also, when you average things out, how do the kiddie coasters affect things?  KI has 3 family coasters while CP has 2 and Holiday World has 1?

I love FAAC and The Beastie, I assume neither made the top 500 because they are what they are, designed for smaller riders 3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...