Shooting Star

Long time lurker, first time poster (in a while). A friend of mine linked me to these photos. Looks like these guys got dressed up in suits and went to Kings Island. The memes are mean, but it looks like these guys aren't really building a case against what they're saying. Does anyone know the backstory behind this? Enjoy!

Here is a critique of Banshee. I'm not sure who these people are, but they have a lot of coaster videos. I want to say it's some kid and his older sister, but they kind of act like boyfriend and girlfriend or something. I've only met a few of you over the past ten or so years, but I always thought that you guys definitely didn't live up to the "nerd" reputation that coaster enthusiasts typically have... these guys do. **Warning: There is some... colorful... language by the older woman.

Okay, I've been lurking for quite some time but when I saw this I had to come out of the shadows. Let me start this off by telling you a little about myself. I worked in wood coaster maintenance for about 15 years for another park chain in the country. Since then I have gone on to a regular "desk job" in engineering. I have worked with some American roller coaster manufacturers consulting for different aspects - mainly doing calculations for certain track elements and safety mechanisms. I've never designed a roller coaster in my life... I don't want to give you the wrong impression about what I do, but I can speak with a lot of credibility on the issue. With that being said, your statement that "poor upkeep" being the reason why some rides are rough and others are not is relatively unfounded. There are numerous reasons why a ride could be rough or smooth. It could be anything from initial design to the weather that day. If you saw someone working on the track on the morning of opening day at Holiday World that's great, but you would see it at Kings Island, Six Flags and anywhere else. They say that when you build a wooden roller coaster you're building a marriage. Those things are maintained every day of the season. They don't just take the day off because it's closing day. It still has to cycle hundreds of times that day. You're not going to risk damage to the trains or the rest of the track just because the park is closed the next day. As far as The Voyage is concerned, I've never ridden it. I can tell you that the steel structure probably messes with the physics. It could be a good thing or a bad thing, but I haven't really seem an overwhelming preference for it. According to most accounts, The Voyage was built for under $9 million. That's extraordinarily inexpensive for a ride that size. I just think that they tried to do too much on too little. You shouldn't have to explore options for new trains with a ride having been open less than 5 years. What happened to those trains anyway? I imagine that they determined that The Voyage would have torn them to pieces with regular use. I don't think the Gravity Group is really responsible for any of this. They're good people, they make a fine product. If I had to submit a guess I would say that they were asked to build this ride on a certain budget and they did what they asked... and Holiday World got what they paid for.

The KIC event this year looks cool. I can't wait to meet a lot of you there. Who's all coming? I've already bought my ticket!!!

I asked my area sup if I could post it before I said anything and he said he didn't care. They start ordering merch sooner than you think. It was right around this time last year that we got the original designs of the shirts for Flight Deck, Invertigo, etc. Of course, this was only one box of each, which I think was for the full timers to check out. Getting so many boxes in makes me think that they may want to change the name before the end of the season.

Believe me or not, but you'll see someday soon what the truth is. The shirt is black like most other shirts in The Beast clothing line. It features a logo that's not unlike the old Beastie logo (same font) and features a relatively generic cartoonish coaster car on wooden track. My first thought was that it was the name of the new ride until I got to see the depiction of the wooden coaster car. The shirt looks kind of cartoonish which is what is leading me to believe that it's the Fairly Odd Coaster's new name. The picture in it is clearly children riding the ride which also backs up my thoughts. I don't expect anyone to believe me about this, I realize that I'm new here. I look forward to sharing more details about this as I see more mystery boxes shipped into my warehouse.

GrandSon of Beast!!! I work in the shipping warehouse at Kings Island and 22 boxes of "GrandSon of Beast" t-shirts arrived at the park on Friday. Do you think they're changing the name of the Fairly Odd Coaster?