silver2005

^S&S has been making launch coasters like that overseas for a while, mostly in the Asian market. Could be Premier as well, at least the track looks Premier to me (or even Intamin going by some of their recent coasters).

I got to ride it through its entire life. I rode it as early as the gold pass preview night in 2000 (which was later in the season due to the late track work editing they made so late in the process, something it would endure through its entire lifespan). 12 year old me was impressed by it. However, every day it aged, it got worse. It was a ride I would only do early in the day and maybe twice a visit. For all that impressive size, it sure didn't deliver in the ride quality department. The first drop, while impressive, had to have a drive tire at the top to actually get the trains over the drop, and with the extremely gradual drop curve, it had no weightlessness to speak of. The 2nd hill had a nice lateral jar at the top, but that was it in terms of any sort of fun forces. The giant helices were way to spread out to have any sort of positive G that was of note and even then, it had too much of a jackhammer effect to be any fun. The only 2 seats I would ride were the front 2. Even riding in non-wheel seats anywhere past the front 2 was awful. The loop was probably the best part of the ride, the trains went into it with good speed (the MCBR didn't slow the train at all), it was butter smooth, and had some decent positive G's for being so tall (the loop was one of the biggest at the time, 118 ft, up there with the bigger B&M loops of the era like Mantis, Chang and Riddler's Revenge). Since it was so helix centered and so spread out, it had absolutely no airtime. I know y'all get on B&M's and Millennium Force for being force-less, but SOB made those interesting by comparison in terms of the ride experience. I mean, how do you have both a wooden coaster and a hyper coaster with no airtime? It got even worse after the 2007 renovation. Gerstlauer trains were sure never made to do 80 mph. They made it over hills to the point where I thought it would stall and the jackhammering got worse, not to mention they were extremely uncomfortable. This also had no good seats.

^They do that at pretty much every announcement.

The annual Six Flags announcements are tomorrow (8/30). Not sure what time, though I imagine it'll be before or around noon-ish. The only thing I've heard is that SFMM will possibly hitting the 20 coaster mark. I didn't see anything happening on my trip to NJFTP. No RMC conversion rumors that I've heard either.

I liked the music overall, but I have to say, this show was dying for an ELO or Styx song somewhere.

I feel like all the restrooms sans Festhaus' should have new AC units. They're all super humid on hot days.

An oval track that lasts nearly 3 minutes?

@VortexBFForever- Do you accept this challenge?

Uh....Kings Island opens a whole month before Cedar Point and CP has no Winterfest...

^That last paragraph in my post is directed to any SOB fan, not just you.

Where and who have you seen excitement on a SOB revival? Most if not all other coaster forums worth their salt agree with the fact that SOB shouldn't come back as well. Also, I want the SOB fanboys to define what they want. RCCA is dead, so you can't bring them back to design the park a new one (and Stengel certainly won't go near a wooden coaster ever again). Intamin hasn't built a plug n' play in over a decade (not to mention CF won't go near Intamin), and traditional wooden coasters honestly shouldn't be built anywhere near hyper coaster stats. A ground up RMC would be the best equivalent, but its not all that groundbreaking in the way SOB fanboys say they want (they just reached joined the hyper club at CP and at SFGAm with their respective track types). What is your ultimatum?

One that stays open? Are you crazy?

^For all that 'intimidation', the ride itself was quite boring. Every hill was drawn out so there was absolutely no airtime to be had, and the layout was all giant drawn out helices. The only real good part was the loop since it was made of steel and it actually went into it quite fast. Premier wooden coaster trains are very uncomfortable as well. The fixes in 2007 just made it more boring and rough. I seriously don't get the love for such a boring, bad coaster.

I also looked up Valravn's stats, and its Immelman is only 165 ft and only 20 ft shorter than Yukon, so unlikely.

I like the interaction is has with Vortex in threading through the far helix on the first drop.

Just out of curiosity, did you happen to catch that guy's reaction to the announcement?

@McSalsa- some local news stations were running with a return of SOB as a possibility adding fuel to that fire. Even my parents thought it was a possibility and they don't follow the industry.

^ @malem or @IndyGuy4KI might have some experience in that department with their dealings with KD and KBF this year. EDIT: If I were you, I'd play it safe and renew and upgrade at the park you got the Gold Passes from. I hear some CF parks can have discrepancies when switching unless you're moving to one of those parks or something which they'd be more thorough under those circumstances rather than someone renewing at a different park on a whim. Just my 2 cents.

The free Fast Lane Plus is for the park you are purchasing the passes from.

KI has the longest wooden coaster in the world, the longest inverted coaster in the world, one of the top rated hyper coasters in the world, one of the tallest Drop Towers in the world, and an assortment of other rides. Its not like KI has dropped off the map, so I don't understand this line of thought that the park needs something to put them 'on the map' when they're securely on said map. Some of the rides you mentioned as being mediocre are rides that the GP laps up (trust me, they love Diamondback and Banshee, though I will agree with you on their viewing of Firehawk). Mystic Timbers may not have had the same draw, but they obviously like it a lot regardless of how it came off. Yes, the chain saw some drop in attendance, but in going with what @stashua123 has previously brought up, the park was bound for a drop after some pretty steady growth. The ups come with the downs. I still trust KI and CF management to still be successful regardless of those ailments.

After looking at the layouts of car rides at other parks, It would be feasible to fit the entire layout on that one side. I'm guessing all those buildings and the FC pad are gone though unless they get creative. Also, this'll make for some nice photo opportunities for Racer.

Both car rides at Cedar Point had fairly good lines when I was last up there (on a day where most of the bigger coasters sans Maverick and SV had lines barely out of their stations) so they have proven that they do get their fare share of ridership.

But at the track length they said, they'd have to go under Racer, yes?

Solid addition. Pretty good location with the terrain they have at their disposal (I'm assuming they're using DA's footprint).

Solid quality on their Twitter as well. Their FB feed is abysmal.