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The conversation about Son of Beast has been moved to this topic. In light of many threads about the ride and one giant thread that has devolved from discussion to rumors to jokes about the rumors, it's time to start anew. Hopefully this will create a more concise topic that won't require reading through 150+ pages to get caught up on. Facts: - The ride has not operated since June 16, 2009. - The park's current General Manager has stated the reason for not operating the ride is his dissatisfaction with the ride's performance. “Eight days after I took over, the accident occurred,” said Scheid. “We have struggled with it ever since. We have smoothed out the ride. Most people will say they are comfortable with the ride, but I am not comfortable with the ride.” - From 2000 - 2006 the ride was the world's only wooden looping roller coaster and operated with trains manufactured by Premier Rides. - On July 9, 2006 an accident occurred. According to an investigation by the State of Ohio Department of Agriculture: a cracked vertical timber [in the ride's "Rose Bowl" section] created a "bump." When a train navigated this section, some riders received non life-threatening injuries and the ride was closed for the remainder of the season. - Following the Department of Agricultures investigation [which faulted some aspects of the design of the ride] in which recommendations to improve the rides performance were made, the loop was removed and "new" trains were installed. - On july 4, 2007, Son of Beast re-opened nearly a year after its accident. The ride featured two modified trains manufactured by Gerstauler that were originally found on the Hurricane at Myrtle Beach Pavillion. To accommodate the lighter trains, the loop was removed. Son of Beast was still billed as the world's tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster. - On June 16, 2009 - the ride was voluntarily closed down after a woman came forward stating she had suffered an injury on the ride in May of that year. The ride has not re-opened since for the reasons stated above: dissatisfaction with the ride's performance. Note: the incident in June of 2009 has never been officially stated to have been the reason for the ride's closure. As of this topic's posting on July 5, 2012: No decision has been made regarding the future of Son of Beast. References: Cincinnati Enquirer, "What's Next for Son of Beast?" - April 24, 2011. Cincinnati Business Courier, "Son of Beast a No-Go for 2010." - March 15, 2010. Cincinnati Enquirer, "Son of Beast" shuts down at K.I. - June 23, 2009. Ground Rules: - Please follow KICentral.com's "Terms of Service." Failure to abide by these rules will result in consequences. - Feel free to discuss rumors about the ride and ideas for its future use, HOWEVER, if you are going to claim to have "inside information" or a claim you heard something from an "official" (and things of this nature), state your source or have your post deleted. - Be respectful to your fellow posters, but at the same time have a sense of humor, please. - Share your memories of the ride and your experiences, but make your post worth reading. - Son of Beast, Summer 2008. From KICentral.com's "The Event." Photo by Ronny Salerno.

I went to church on Sunday. There were lots of suits there. I said SOB and they kicked me out! I guess even they don't want to hear it

Hmm...well, since everyone here is sharing their SOB memories... I actually, as a 10-year-old kid, visited the park in August 2000- Son of Beast's opening year. While I never rode the ride, I do have a lot of memories of watching this massive wooden coaster that made the Hoosier Hurricane I had ridden at Indiana Beach look like a midget. (SOB is 218', Hoosier Hurricane is a mere 78', according to RCDB.com)! And it had a loop. As a kid, I thought it was crazy...my cousin did ride it, and he said he loved it, and that on a scale of 1-10 on how scary it was...it was clearly a 10. In comparison, after riding SOB, he said Original Beast was a mere 6 now (he previously called it a "9")...I did go on The Racer (forwards) that day and it scared me quite a bit, and I never rode coasters again until 2009... In 2008, at school on the computer one day, I decided to look up Kings Island as my sister was going and one of the items said "Son of Beast loses loop!". I freaked out. "NO LOOP ON Son of Beast!?!?" I thought. I then learned there was an accident on the ride, which I assumed incorrectly was someone falling out of the loop. On the plus side, I did also think: "Well, now that the loop is gone, at least it is probably less scary now"...I also learned of "a big construction site behind the Eiffel Tower" from my sister upon her return: which turned out to be...oh, do I even need to say it? Someone will guess... In May of 2009, I finally returned to Kings Island- no longer a little kid, but now a 19-year-old teenager. I brought myself to try the original Beast, as I had noticed from POVs that it had long sections of straight track and henceforce, I thought I could handle it. I did, and fell in love with coasters. I rode Vortex afterwards, and then mustered up enough guts to try the then-brand-new Diamondback. Upon riding both a wooden coaster (Beast) and a 200'+ coaster (Diamondback), I decided to try Son of Beast- I figured it would just be putting the two together. I would never get to test my theory. When we headed to SOB, a ride op approached us and told us they were closed for the rest of the day- even though they were doing test runs and the trains appeared to be going around just fine. So instead, we hit up Flight Deck, rode The Racer for a wood coaster fix, Flight of Fear, and eventually an epic night ride on the original Beast. We left the park with Son of Beast still "unridden". No problem, I figured. I would get that credit next time I visited KI... I did not return until May of 2010. By that time, Son of Beast was SBNO. It's still there, of course...sitting, rotting away, and every time I walk back to ride Flight Deck (a ride I enjoy quite a bit) I can't help but look at it. I've had friends who have ridden SOB- my sister and her friend, both short, lightweight females, adored the ride and said claims of it being killer rough are indeed exaggerated. But my best friend, who is 6'0 and about 260-270lbs (a pretty decent sized dude) rode from the very back and was trying to save his phone, and got THRASHED...he still, somehow, enjoyed the ride. In 2011, I had a very, very rough ride on The Voyage (BANG! BANG! BOOM! BOOM! Throws me around like a rag doll...) at Holiday World...my friend, who had that ride on SOB, said that was what SOB was like...only even about 10-20% worse. Of course, I still have yet to ride Son of Beast in real life. All I have to go on are POVs, RCT3 recreations, No Limits recreations, and...dreams. I have actually ridden SOB many, many times in my dreams...including one that was 100% realistic, except for the fact you got a coupon for free cheeseburgers for riding for some odd reason... Sorry for the long post...but I felt like sharing my thoughts...I've got some more unrelated stuff (it is SOB related though), but I'll save that for another post...

I just wanted to add some of my own sarcasm and absurdity to this thread. I feel better now...

I was at KI this past weekend and while i was waiting to get on the the train I heard someone mention the SOB. Then I saw train car 208 attached to train car 214. The only explanation for this is that the number 2 stands for the 2nd Beast (SOB) and the 08 and 14 could only mean that we will find out about the SOB on August 14th!

After a long hiatus from KIC, I decided to return because I missed the friendships from you all. What better way to return than a big PTR! This PTR will have to be in multiple parts but here we go with Part 1: Over the past weekend, I got to head out of Ohio and over to Pennsylvania. I spent the day, Friday, on the road with some friends heading toward Hershey! We got to Hershey about 6:30ish that evening....before we got into the park we had to face a parking nightmare. Dave Matthew’s Band was playing that night and the parking lot was a mess....many people taking up 3 spots to tailgate, play cornhole, drink, etc. That was very frustrating. As soon as we parked we headed to Chocolate World...it was just a quick trip in as we had just about an hour to kill....so we did “Hershey’s Great American Chocolate Tour Ride.” It was a nice little ride, too bad there wasn’t something to gain points with! After the ride we headed into the shops to basically drool over all the candy! 7:30 fast approached and we headed into the park for preview night. We headed straight toward Roller Soaker as it was to close at 8pm. It was a neat little ride..but wasn’t happy that I was the one who got soaked out of the 4 of us that rode it. We then headed over to Lightning Racer...we rode Lightning first, then Thunder, both rides landed us a winning train. Lightning Racer definitely has become a favorite wooden coaster of mine! Especially since our one ride was a “night ride” and the chaser lights were on! We then did the Wild Mouse which was the typical mouse coaster. Directly across from it, we headed to Wildcat. When we got up to the station, they stopped operations because of a protein spill. The people in the station were rediculous. Drove me nuts actually....they kept complaining about the spill not being cleaned up as quick as they thought it should have taken....but they kept talking to the ops cleaning it up. Plus the vo-ban had to sit for a while to soak it all up....and there was a ton! The station pretty much cleared out, so I went to the front row and waited for my ride. It was a great one at that, I really fell in love with the chaser lights on coasters after this experience! After that experience we decided to make our way over to Skyrush. On the way we stopped at Fahrenheit, as the line was rather short! I absolutely loved the layout...not real wild compared to Maverick. I am a big fan of the style of trains on those two coasters. We then made way to Skyrush. We queued for some time, but once we got to the station, it was a breeze. Our turn was coming up, I grabbed a left wing seat and took off! I am absolutely amazed at the speed of the lift! The lift in itself is an amazing thing. Like many reviews I’ve read and heard, it was an awesome coaster, with some pain....I didn’t have too much pain. I absolutely loved my first ride on it, I knew the next day I’d have to get a front row seat! We then headed to our hotel for the evening to pass out and prep for the next day. (Cell Phone Pic) On Saturday morning, we made our way to the park bright and early for registration with Central PA’s ACE Region for the event. Once in the park, we hit up ERT on Fahrenheit for a quick ride then headed over to Storm Runner. Storm Runner was a nice coaster, but a bit short. I really enjoyed the layout...it’s such a photogenic coaster too! After a few rounds on it, we headed over to Skyrush to get it before the opening crowd. We found out that the Hershey Resort Guests get in an hour early over at Skyrush and Comet. So ACE members weren’t the true first riders of the day. However, the queue was a bit short and we decided to get the front seat. While our group was waiting in the station behind the gate, train #2, loaded up and was dispatched. The cable came down to bring the train out, moved just a few inches and stopped. Maintenance was called and they came to fix it. The train started moving, but crawled up the lift hill...stopped about a ¼ of the way up as the other train came into the station. Once that train came in, the one on the lift went up and followed the course. Then our group was next to go, 2 members of our group, went first on one train and the other 4 of us got on the train that didn’t get fast lift. When all of our trains restraints were checked, we were dispatched...we moved 2 inches and stopped. Maintenance was called, we were told by ride ops: “Since this train has started moving, we are not allowed to get you off unless told to by maintenance, however maintenance is on their way.” Once maintenance got there, they did a couple quick things and we inched up the hill. We also got stopped about ¼ of the way up. Honestly it was an amazing experience....felt great to just sit there, feel the breeze and take in the views. We then heard the motors start going, we ended up rolling back about an inch, but the safeties caught us and then were pulled up the lift slowly. Once we dropped from the lift, it was such an amazing experience! There were so many great views, the track looked amazing and just overall I was happy. We found that if you pull up on the blue bars of the restraints on your sides, it hurts a little bit less. After we got off the ride, they sent it empty and took it off for maintenance to work on it. We then headed over to Great Bear and Super Dooper Looper. Both were good coasters, although I felt that Great Bear was just a rather good bear. We then headed over to Trailblazer. There was a hilarious older gentlman working on the crew. He would tell you if you didn’t raise your hands, you’d pay the price....he then would squirt anyone without their hands up with a squirt gun! Surprisingly it was a good mine train. We then hit up Sidewinder and the flat Hurler before lunch. After a nice lunch and door prizes (in which I snagged a piece of the Legend roller coaster at Holiday World), we hit up a few rides including Falcon, the Reese's dark ride, the monorail and their Eagles. The pics below of Sidewinder are from testing in the morning. For those that know me, I don't like children...this showed there were too many children in the park: As the day headed on, we re-rode some coasters including Lightning Racer (both sides). Did their whip which we ended up hitting the wall on the inside, haha! We also did Wildcat and I got stuck on the break run with my friend’s daughter. We then got evacuated and had to walk through the break run and into the station. Afterwards we decided to head toward Comet. We stopped on our way to take some pictures of Fahrenheit. When we rode Comet, it was a great ride in the back seat. 2 members of our group were at a show and the rest of us rode the skyride. We then went back over to Comet and rode once, then headed to Skyrush. We waited in line for a front row again. After that ride, evening ERT on Skyrush and Comet started. We found out that they added Super Dooper Looper to the line up. We focused mainly on Skyrush and had many rides on it! It was so good! We noticed that on one train, the restraints are a little bit softer, but they didn’t help the pain. As ERT was ending I headed over to Comet with my one friend and rode it twice, once in the back row and once in the 2nd row. I really enjoyed Comet. This next photo was taken with permission from the ride operator while waiting for maintenance to arrive at the ride. Part 2 coming soon!

ohiocolts please make a trip report! I know you are good at explaining rides and experiences. My GF and I are going to try and make a trip out there this year. We live in Indy. Let me (us) know about your trip.

Heres an idea I have for a new coaster and what to do with SOB. "Beast's Revenge". A brand new B&M giga. The supports would be dark brown, with blood red track. The trains would be like DB's, with two Beast paws, claws extended, on the nose of the front car. Of the three trains, the colors would be black, silver, and red. This new coaster would also include $30 million in already existing theming! Thats where SOB's structure comes into play. Demolish certain areas of the structure and leave others standing. Scatter the wood on the ground around the demolished sections. Place one of the trains on the track of a standing section, as if the front car is hanging over the edge. Take the other train and drop it from the crane near a smashed section of track from 100 feet up or so, so it smashes up as if it fell from the track. Then use some of the broken timber to build the sign for "Beast's Revenge", so that fans of SOB could touch some of the wood from the coaster . The new coaster would weave in and out of the still standing sections of SOB. The back story would be that "Beast" was angry about what had been done with SOB and thrashed it royaly! I think this would be a great ride and would also save some money on demo costs. Plus pay homage to SOB at the same time. I'm sure there are reasons why they couldnt or wouldnt, but would still be cool.

Ooooh, cruel... I bet he was waiting to see how long it would take me to catch that!

OK, here's a bit more cool SOB stuff: POV Video of the ride testing in 2000: Son of Beast takes a test run...and you can ride along! Also, do NOT FILM WHILE RIDING WITHOUT PARK PERMISSION! I chose this video instead of the Discovery Channel one because...this one's much clearer. Travel Channel's Ultimate Rides: Drop Zone & Son of Beast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DMIvVOHLqk A video from the travel channel from a long time ago featuring Drop Zone and Son of Beast, and even a little of the original Beast. LOL that they get the opening date for Drop Zone wrong- it debuted in 1999, not 2001! Coasterimage.com Music Video- Beast & Son of Beast A cool music video with The Beast and Son of Beast. Was filmed shortly before SOB's famous accident and features some of the last footage of the ride with the loop still intact. Bonus footage of Avatar: The Last Airbender (now Surf Dog) at the end. NoLimits- Spez's Son of Beast Recreation Download Link: http://nolimits-exchange.com/coaster/son-of-beast/696 (you will probably need to sign up- it's free, though) An excellent (there are some minor flaws, but they are minor...) recreation of Son of Beast for No Limits- includes the loop. You'll want a fast PC with a good graphics card for it, though! Well, that's pretty much it...enjoy all this SOB related stuff... PS: Most of this was probably in the old SOB thread, but I figured I'd just post it all here so that it would be easier for others to find...

^Don't end a sentence in a preposition! That is not proper grammar to! Seriously though, Drummer, have you made sure you entered the correct number from your season pass into the website? It is quite possible that you have hit the wrong key.

On an unrelated note, if they were to open the ride back up, I'm kind of curious as to how the park would advertise it. If you consider all the messed up rumors, and how almost everyone I talk to think's that people fell out the loop and other weird stuff, they'd have to do (I imagine) a good amount of work to actually get some people to ride it. I don't think renaming it would work since a lot of people probably know what the ride is since it's been sitting there for the past 3 years, and even if the accidents known to be directly caused by the ride weren't deadly, they were still accidents none the less, and at least to me, that'd make me just a tad apprehensive about riding it. What do you think? Mod Edit: Removed reference to a conversation that was delted.

I'm not sure. Fridays definitely not. Saturdays I would think so since they are open for normal operations before Haunt begins, but I could be wrong. Sundays there is no Haunt so again I would think so. Best way to find out is by calling KI.

No, it is just him counting, but the park does have data to "confirm" that he is being truthful - pass scans at entry, ride ops seeing him at DB constantly, etc.... He also made a big deal about marathoning it and counting from the beginning so it's been a continual journey with the park. What is always sad to me is the rude (get a job, get a life for example) comments that accompany this story on Facebook and other places. Gary is a nice friendly guy, who enjoys riding DB - I say congrats, enjoy, and ride on!

I was on the SOB on 7/9/06 shortly before the train that caused the injuries (as oblivious as I am it could have been that train). It was my first time on the ride, I remember hearing a cracking noise at one point during the ride and noticed it was extremely rough ride. When the ride came into the station it was not the cheering you usually hear but more of a quiet nervous sound as if something wasn't right and heard some others complaining of pain. I felt weird but then got an ice cream, walked on to Vortex (literal walk on, the gates opened as I got there), then we left just as the first responders were arriving on the scene. So I was one of the last riders to experience the loop which was the best part of the ride. Next couple of days I was sore with symptoms close to whiplash but nothing major. I also would agree that when the ride came back online it wasn't as rough but still did not find it to be a fun ride.

^A PIECE, not the whole relief. GYK figured it would be shattered, so he wanted a shard of it, a memento. And that relief was over 75 feet tall, I don't think a 1x1 would have made a huge difference (GYK, I would have done the same thing as you!).