PKIDelirium

The “it’s not really a giga” claims drive me nuts. Apollo’s Chariot is an undisputed hyper, but with a sub-200 structure and terrain first drop. KI building a giga that way is a very KI way of building a giga because of our history with using the available terrain in ride designs.

Matarese is not #1.

Wood doesn’t rust, the most this has is some kind of primer or fabrication coating. It’s scuffed up where the rigging was attached to it.

Ah, a not-so-shiny new column!

Looks like the lateral brace column is also being replaced, the one being raised in that video thumbnail has a bolting flange on it.

Apparently I’m the only person on here other than you that’s seen the movie a current attraction is named after.

A normal Lazy River in Soak City to fill the "calm, relaxing" role that was lost with the conversion of the original to an Action River.

To answer the thread title's question, I'm going to say the original Antique Cars. Paramount was bad at putting things where they didn't fit, like building IJST using less than half of that land instead of Action Zone where it would actually fit the theme of the area. Action Zone itself was meant to be a backlot, but instead they bulldozed a large area, an attraction the park itself was designed around, and just thunked it down there while leaving the rest of the property a bunch of flat grass. Regarding Diamondback, I'm sure it would be done differently now in a more area-fitting way, but the early Cedar Fair years focused more on catching up on things Paramount had lagged on, especially the spree of building B&M hypers. Maybe if Paramount hadn't done IJST how they did, Diamondback's station area could have taken the place of the closed Rivertown Antique Cars area and crossed the pathway using the lift hill instead of the drop, without removing the lake. The return run could have been a tunnel under the midway to get back to that side of the path for the finale element and brakes. Obviously there's no way to bring back Swan Lake as it was, but there's a lot of open grass on both sides of the pathway there, behind Showplace and also across from Diamondback that's sat vacant for a very long time now. A new lake as an entry to Rivertown could use both of those areas, with the pathway bridging over it. Diamondback's repaint is a welcome step in making it blend in more, but things like landscaping around the pool, upgrading and theming the queue, replanting the excessive number of removed trees behind the former Crypt building to better obscure the back half of the ride, there's plenty of things that can be done just with theme and landscape work to fit the area better. (There is still a box of broken flip phones that forms the "theming" for the queue. That got old ten years ago, guys.)

It's probably both a matter of a new spinning ride getting broken in, and there's probably also a mechanism where every car has to be set to the same rotation limit. People keep saying some spin easily but others barely spin even with a lot of power, so they're probably just not all matched yet. It seems a certain person thinks that these rides are supposed to be direct replacements for Keggers and Skylab.

Okay, first yeah that was a minor spoiler, but that being said...

#WhatsTheRightTrack

I'm guessing the seat carriers themselves are slightly different as on the 24 they only have a single attachment for each seat, instead of the hardware needed to attach a two-seat pod. Otherwise I'm pretty sure they're the same mechanically.

It's actually not smaller, the 24 and 48 are the same physical size. The only difference is the seat carriers have two single seats instead of two double seats. Personally I think the one-across will provide a better open-air feeling for riders.

Nope, those were just plain wood walls. Sol Spin’s foundation makes sense now. There hadn’t been anything visible for the side braces of the ride structure to attach to, only the row of main attachments, but now it seems they drilled and chemically anchored the bolts for those during assembly.

Bummer. Maybe they’ll replace it properly after daily ops are over, because concrete stain outside in the weather with all that foot traffic will wear out and look bad.

I know I’m picking nits about concrete here, but the ET photos have me convinced they actually did cut out and replace the part at the edge of Mercado. It’s a very clean line, and the new surface is exactly the same shade as what was poured for the AE entrance last week. A slightly deeper shade than the midway right next to it, which has been in place for over a month and had time to weather in compared to the new. And now back to construction, lol.

https://www.zamperla.com/products/endeavour/ Zamperla’s page seems to indicate that the 24-seat model is trailer mount and the 48-seat is a park model. It’s unclear though, because one of their photos is a 48 seat park installation but the foundation is different than what is at KI. Regarding the concrete, they already had a crew there pouring shaded concrete for the AE plaza and touching up around Cargo Loco, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they just cut and removed the existing concrete and poured new along the Mercado. It’s not THAT much work to remove a section and replace it during the week while they still have time to modify it.

Nah, that’s just the SlingShot tribute statue. Nice catch, didn’t notice that. It was strange to have the Mercado concrete so far outside the bounds of Mercado itself and into the actual midway. Someone must have realized that and decided to fix it before daily operation started, looks a lot nicer and will be even better once the construction fence is down. I’m pretty sure Mercado’s concrete has some shading to it. Subtle, but compare it to the ride queues or stand on the Mercado directly and look between your feet and the cap on the skyride foundation. It’s kind of a steel blue.

Using the ride foundations and queues for contrast, I'm pretty sure the Mercado deck's concrete has some shading in it. It's not blatant, but there's some light blue/steel grey or something in there. Up close, just compare the new cap on the old Skyride foundation to the Mercado surface right next to it.

Loving the detail work on the mechanical building.

For a company that started off with two LARGE coaster projects in a row, the initial Timberliner woes that led Holiday World to bring GCI in for a while, and some of their rides having problems with being high-maintenance, Gravity Group has really struck gold with the all-wood prefab track system. Racer's retracking and profile adjustments turned out great, and the following major Beast project provided a much needed, well-executed overhaul. Fun Spot is opting for RMC ReTrak on some parts of Mine Blower, but I heard Voyage has started getting some of the new Gravity Group track. Considering how finicky Voyage has been over the years with conventional track, hopefully that works out well for them and they can get it back to more like how it ran when it was new.

I'm not sure how much it actually benefits the park anyway. I always avoid the heck out of the tournament time because of traffic.

Back in the Paramount days when there was a LOT more asphalt in the park, it would always reek on the first weekends from the seal coating, hit you walking up towards the entrance plaza and took at least a week after opening to fade.

Baynum photos of Diamondback.

@malem I recall a bug with an Invision upgrade a number of years ago where the profile field with the id of “1” broke the permissions to edit that field. For me, that was the AIM field. If that’s the cause, all you have to do is make sure the Members group has permission to edit that field.