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What`s next for Son of Beast?


fighting31irish

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I can vouch for this...just saw it yesterday, you can see it plainly from Adventure Express. Not real familiar with the layout on SOB, but, one of the middle lifthills is completely turned askew, track faces directly towards AE, the support boards are turned over as well, many look broken and missing. Looks like the whole area collapsed, and twisted the track sideways.

I don't mean to sound like I'm questioning whether or not you actually saw what you did, but I think what you saw was the first hill after the first drop. That hill actually is just that strongly banked... Outside of The Voyage, it's one of the biggest banking angles I think I've ever seen on a modern wooden coaster. From Adventure Express, it pretty much does look like you're looking at the track from the top, but that's just how the ride is. Until I started experiencing other parks, that was actually one of my favorite elements on a coaster--up until the train started knocking back and forth as you got closer to the top, that is. :P

As far as the support boards go... I've got nothing. I was usually too preoccupied with avoiding cracked ribs after the first drop to care about what the supports look like. ;)

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Personally I feel like Kings Island won't try to outdo The Beast. Even if it ends up not being the longest in the world, there's still much to be said about being the longest wooden coaster in America. Wasn't the Son of Beast purposefully left a few hundred feet shorter just so that The Beast could retain the record? And while many records don't seem to typically be "well known" by the public (especially Cedar Fair's traditionally far-reaching ones), even they seem to know that The Beast is the world's longest wooden coaster.

My personal opinion is that with so many well-versed wooden coaster creators nowadays (including Intamin's plug-and-play and GCI), a tallest, fastest wooden coaster could be successful. After all, after Son of Beast, the #2, #3, and #4 slot for tallest wooden coasters all go to Intamin, and if anyone might attempt a wooden loop again, I can see it being Intamin. The question is, would Cedar Fair pay the undoubtedly massive price that any company would charge to conquer those records again?

But I think there is truth to the idea that Kings Island is a sort of 'wooden coaster capital' in a sense. If Cedar Fair did decide to create a wooden behemoth the way they've so long focused on steel ones, I should hope Kings Island would be at the top of their list... One of the most important wooden coasters historically, one of the 'best' wooden coasters annually... A real record breaker really would be at home. It would be a nod to the past and a testament to the future. Of course, that was a different Cedar Fair. The new company may like to tread carefully, and maybe that's best.

But seriously... a 200 foot Intamin pre-fab with a loop. Can you imagine? Talk about putting KI on the map... The Travel Channel specials would write themselves. (And so would the marketing: Son of Beast was a real brat, but now he's on his best behavior. Son of Beast: REBORN. Only at Kings Island.) Dreamer? You bet. But I'm not the only one.

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I will do my best to get a photo of it on a weekend trip coming here in the next few weeks. That is the area in question, however, the whole walk area is twisted over, the track area is twisted over far more than that photo suggests, and, there are many boards just hanging loose.

I just think nit goes back to the original lawsuit KI filed against the contractor for using sub-standard wood products during construction. Add to that 2+ years of sitting with no maintenance, and you have failures.

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Actually, The Gravity Group said in a Gravitycast podcast episode from a few years ago that, now that the Timberliners are out, they'd pretty much just need to find the right client who wants a wooden coaster with a loop to do it.

Not to say it is not possible, but would they feel the same way about that statement today? That was probably before they got delayed on The Voyage twice.

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^ Good point. Still, the context of the statement seemed to be that they were more comfortable with the idea of a loop because they now have control over the trains' design. I'm sure The Voyage has helped them realize the depth of that responsibility, but there's also a difference in the situation--we're comparing adding Timberliners on a ride that's spent five years running a different manufacturer's trains to them designing a new ride that has a loop and would be designed around Timberliners in the first place. The former is what's causing them problems; the latter, without the loop, has apparently given them few issues. Just see Wooden Warrior and Twister.

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Just an update on the Supposed "Falling Apart" Of Son of Beast where the really sharp banking is. I rode AE today and did notice it... If you look at the pic above posted by unrealsk8r, if you look at the middle rails in between the tracks, you notice a few of them are kinda crooked and not straight up with the track. In what I saw today of the Supports between that track, NONE of them Are straight! They are all bowing out, falling off or just not even there at all! Kinda surprised to see this actually... wander if anyone else saw or noticed this weekend..

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^ If you look closely at unrealsk8r's picture, they're actually not straight there, either. The ride just looks like that--they're at very odd angles to each other. It's very different from what we've come to expect from KI's other woodies. It's not impossible that there might be some missing; I'm just saying what I've noticed. :)

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I hope not. I want to get Pictures next season of it , if they are going to be removing it sad.png .

In some way I dont care If they remove it but yet i will miss it. Its memories.

I wish they would just let us know though. Maybe they just dont know what to do with it.

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Is it me or did anyone else remember last year when they said they were going to decide it's future in the 2010-2011 offseason? I hope they at least say something about it this offseason. The ride's been sitting there for a little over 2 years now!

I think they're waiting for a windstorm

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