Rustbucket

BTW, there are some leveling of the ground behind SoB. This is clearly visible from Drop Tower.

If it was up to me, I'd burn the thing down. That ride affected many employees in ways that some of you fanboys will never understand. That would affect so many people surrounding the area. The toxic fume from burning pressure treated lumber burning will create health hazard. Cedar Fair will not survive onslaught of lawsuits. Because the structure is made out of woods, that does not been it can be burned without any problem.

Actually, I own a piece of Kings Island, Cedar Point, Canada's Wonderland and all other CF parks. Like someone said, it is all in FUN.

That was so last millennium.....

This is a great park with world class rides. Ride El Toro, Rolling Thunder and Nitro..........

You can look at this from another side. The Beast is still the signature ride at KI. Why would KI put another wooden coaster? Some of these new wooden coasters are very expensive to maintain now.

Small, weird, freakish Beast.

Well, B&M will NEVER build a Giga coaster. (2007 opinion by many)

Millennium Force is highly overrated. I love the first drop onf MF. Not much can be said about the rest. I prefer Magnum any day of the week. Gwazi is not overrated. This is low rated coaster. Both Gwazi and Wildcat at Hershey are two worst GCI coasters I have been on. Both Winged coasters, Wild Eagle and X-Flight were very disappointing.

I love Bizarro at SFNE but it will be too similar to Diamondback to many people. Since the topic is only the US, I will vote for Skyrush at Hershey.

My marathon: Diamondback - 26 Beast - 18 Racer - 25 Flightdeck - 18 Son of Beast - 12 Flight of Fear -10 Millennium Force - 10 Magnum - 36 Raptor - 20 Gemini - 12 Silver Bullet - 12 Ghostrider - 26 Xcelerator - 54 (All time for coasters) Intimidator - 24 Afterburn -15 Intimidator 305 - 15 Rebel Yell - 20 Grizzly - 10 Bizarro (SFNE) - 16 Shivering Timbers - 10 Raging Bull - 10 Renegade - 10 Montu - 10 Leviathan - 12 Behemoth - 10 Honorable Mention - Drop Tower - 68

Anything like MF, then B&M giga or hyper. Anything like Bizarro, most definitely Intamin Giga or hyper.

Small looper like Son of Beast?

Carowinds - 8/16/2012 As with my previous report, my trip took me to Charlotte, NC. For once, the weather was not brutally hot in August. It was in the mid-80oF. It is usually in the upper 90oF or higher. I have visited Carowinds more than any other park besides KI in the past 4 years. This was my 5th time this year. Except for during April, this park is usually empty during weekdays. This time was no exception. As always, Intimidator is my first ride at Carowinds. I rode Intimidator during the first ride auction in 2010. I ran into Don Helbig on that day. He told me that day that Intimidator is more like Nitro than Diamondback. I absolutely agree with him although the second part of Nitro is more like Diamondback. Anyhow, Intimidator is another great B&M creation. Intimidator - The wait time was around 5 minutes. As always it seems, they were running 2 train operation. For whatever the reason, Carowinds allow people to ride Intimidator without shoes. Intimidator is running as well as I remember. This ride is tracking better than Diamondback by longshot this year. Diamondback wheels have been rattling somewhat. Not this ride. Smooth and airtime machine. I still prefer Diamondback over Intimidator, however. Diamondback has more hills and stronger airtime. I rode this 16 times before heading toward Flying Eag...... Woodstock Gliders. Woodstock Gliders - This ride still should be at KI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I told Don as much in 2010. Is this a kiddie ride? Why is this in the kid's section? For once, they were NOT encouraging people to "rip" the cords. Of course, that did not stop me from doing so. How I miss this ride although I have been riding this quite a bit since 2009. After three satisfying rides, I moved onto Afterburn. Afterburn - This invert packs quite a punch. Also, this ride is getting to be somewhat of a headbanger. I may just be that I just rode Silver Bullet earlier this week, but Afterburn feels rather rough compared to Silver Bullet. Still, this is quite a gem at Carowinds. This ride is relentless through the first part, and goes through another element just as you think the ride is ending. A compact layout is somewhat comparable to Talon which is my favorite Invert. This is my 4th favorite B&M Invert. Alpengeist and Montu are 2 and 3. I rode 12 times in the back and moved on. WindSeeker - My 5th WindSeeker and except for the view, I did not feel different about this over any others except for the one at Cedar Point. Whatever the reason, one at Cedar Point feels faster than other 4 I have ridden. Not a bad time at Carowind considering I only spend 3 hours at the park. I did not wait for any ride except for initial Intimidator wait. Everything else was either reride or walk on. Bay Beach Amusement Park - 8/20/2012 My latest trip took me to Green Bay, Wisconsin. I was here for one ride only, Zippin Pippin. This ride was relocated from Libertyland in Tennessee although the structure was rebuilt by the Gravity Group, I believe. Looking at the structure, this ride was nearly a total rebuild. The original ride was built in 1923. This ride did not look like 1920's design. Zippin Pippin (#301) - For some reason, this ride reminded me of Blue Streak at Cedar Point. However, the comparison ends on the looks only. Each ride was $1 (4 tickets). This ride had great airtime although not as intense as other TGG creation I have been on. There was an extreme ejector air near the end after the turn around. For those who have been on Tornado at Stricker's Grove, the airtime is similar to the one around the middle of that ride. A nice little wooden coaster. (8/10). Heading over to Six Flags Great America next week...........

Supersatuator was gone 4 years ago I believe. Rollersoaker was down last time I was there.

El Toro can be painful if you are NOT stapled. BTW, Skyrush has same intense first drop airtime.

Yes. El Toro. A great, great coaster that blows away all other wooden or steel coasters except one. For me that is.

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Dinosaurs Live?

Kings Island (8/12/2012) My week of coaster began at Kings Island. As usual, I dropped by Action Zone to ride Drop Tower for early ride. My son and I rode DT 6 times and head over to Diamondback for 2 rides. Diamondback is always satisfying. To me, back seats provide much better experience and airtime. I rather ride this B&M masterpiece over any other coaster in Ohio. I only rate Leviathan higher as far as B&M coasters go. We went over to Beast. Beast is also a satisfying ride. There are many other wooden coasters that I rate higher than Beast now, but I am not sure if some of those rides will age as well as Beast. We went over to Flight of Fear, Firehawk and Racer and left. Overall, we spent 3 hours at the park. This was typical Sunday trip for us. Six Flags Magic Mountain (8/13/2012) My latest business trip brought me to Los Angeles area. Of course, I decided to take adventage and visit SFMM. I was looking forward to riding Drop of Doom and Green Lantern. I have been on all of the coasters here except for Green Lantern. However, Drop of Doom is the one I was looking forward to riding ever since Six Flags announced the ride. The park looked extremely busy. It was also over 100 degrees. It was hot! Drop of Doom: I headed over to Drop of Doom first. This ride was built on the support of the Superman but the entrance was next to Batman the Ride in Gotham City area. The queue was enclosed and air conditioned which was nice on such a hot day. I waited about 20 minutes. It seems that many people were afraid to ride this. Some were flat out refusing to ride this. There were 8 seats on either side of the ride. Needless to say, this was a low capacity ride. 400 feet drop ride - ahh! I discussed the ride spec with an engineer near the ride. The magnetic brake was 136 feet. The climb took all of 45 seconds. This was not enough to full enjoy the height! : ) The delay at the top before the plunge was 6 seconds - same as Drop Tower. The restrain system was identical to Skyrush at Hershey, another great Intamin creation. This ride was quite a rush. As expected, the brake was quite harsh compared to Drop Tower. The view was incredible. Goliath looked so small! I had similar sensation when I first rode Top Thrill Dragster and saw Millennium Force. Best 4 second drop ride I have been on. I found the single rider line and rode this 5 additional times. (10/10) Green Lantern (#300) My 300th coaster! This was also in Gotham City area. I went into the single rider line and waited for 10 minutes. The restrain system was identical to Kingda Ka, Storm Runner and the original Intimidator 305. Yet another Intamin ride. This one is called 4-D coaster but very different from X2. This was a free swinging seats unlike X2. Also, this was not as good as X2. This really is a unique coaster. There were some question from Cedar Point about Green Lantern being a coaster or not. (Basic PR move for most coaster in a park debate.) This may not be a great coaster, but this is most definitely a coaster. (7/10) I rode Scream!, Goliath, and Tatsu. Tatsu is my favorite flying coaster. I was on a queue while waiting for X2, but the coaster broke down on the lift hill. After 45 minutes, they forced open the seats and brought down people from the train. Needless to say, the ride was closed for rest of the day. They provided a pass to go to front of any rides for everyone who was waiting on X2. (There were about 50 of us by this time.) I used the pass to ride Tatsu again. Overall, SFMM is a thrill ride junky’s paradise. I would still rate X2 and Tatsu as the best rides of SFMM although Drop of Doom is a great addition to the park. Knott’s Berry Farm (8/14/2012) This park has always been a great little park for me to relax during a business trip to LA area. With the park near RT 91, this park is very easy to get from my hotels. It also became a place for me to avoid bad traffic on RT 91. This was one of those cases where I wanted to avoid the traffic. Do I want to go back to hotel or spend a few hours at KBF. Hmmmmm. My first ride at KBF is always Ghostrider unless it is closed. I have not been on this coaster in 3 years since it was closed last time I was at KBF. This is my favorite ride at KBF although the ride has gotten somewhat rough over the years. I went over to Silver Bullet. This ride was so smoooooth!!!! I do not remember this ride being this smooth. This is an excellent inverted coaster. WindSeeker was near the kid’s area. The color was also quite different from all other WindSeekers. Xcelerator was built as a prototype to Top Thrill Dragster. I finally got a roll back on this. J After 20 rides, I decided to check out the markings all around the park near Knott Blvd area. Also, I learned that Perilous Plunge will be closed down. KBF coasters did not always open in the spring. In fact, Silver Bullet and Ghostrider opened in December. I wondered if there will be a new coaster in 2013. The signs indicated that there will be a new coaster in 2013 or 2014. Next up is Carowinds on 8/16…

One thing to consider is the cost of removing SoB for KI. This will be a BIG cost consideration.

B&M Coaster? Enough markers around KBF yesterday.

I thought Rattler was far worse than SoB. The bottom of the first drop was painfully bouncy. There were many spots where the train was jack hammering and shaking. Rattler is (was) most definitely not fine.

Actually, no. Batwing and Firehawk have double helix where as Nighthawk does not. You are almost correct though. They are nearly identical. For all the flying coasters I have been on Tatsu is by far the best. Batwing, Firehawk, and Nighthawk are better than Superman Fliers at SFGAd, SFGAm, or SFOG. At least, this is my opinion.

I was not impressed with the ride at all. Maybe I was expecting too much. For a winged coaster, Skyrush was much, much better one.