ODYSSEY RAMBLE: 2008

Albeit not the greatest story of holiday cheer, I came across this video on YouTube tonight. The clip, from 1987, contains a short collection of news reports about a death on one of the Lightnin' Loops rollercoasters, at Six Flags Great Adventure, in New Jersey. The way the ride was set up, there were two separate shuttle looping coasters, with interlocking vertical loops. They would be sent off at the same time so that both trains would be in the loops together.

In this particular accident, a girl's "over the shoulder restraint" (or OTSR) lowered behind her in the seat. According to the safety systems and ride operations, it looked like the OTSR was down, giving the "OK" to launch the train. The problem was that the girl was not safely restrained beneath it. The train took off, abruptly went over the drop, and into the loop, where she fell onto track below and then was later struck by the train as it came back into the loop. Lightnin' Loops closed for good in 1992, and was dismantled entirely the next year to make room for Batman the Ride (check out the Lightnin' Loops page at Amusement Pics dot com for some photos and more history).

I remember this story from when I was back in 7th grade. I still have a newspaper clipping of when it happened. This one family in my old neighborhood had relatives from up in Jersey, and every year they would go up to visit. Sometimes they would go to Great Adventure... other times they would visit Action Park (which warrants another set of stories altogether, considering it's nickname from back then was "Traction Park" due to all the injuries and lawsuits). When I heard the news of the Lightnin' Loops incident, I grilled the brothers for information about this ride and anything they'd heard about the accident. It's yet another crazy memory from the odyssey ramble...

Here's the news report:

This past weekend I made the trek from VA to OH. Chip and I were planning a trip to Holiday World (HW), but the plans changed when free tickets to Kings Island (KI) fell into our hands.

I arrived at Cincinnati somewhere around quittin' time on Friday afternoon/early-evening. I expected to get there sooner, but my itinerary (unknowingly until too-late) took me down a slightly different road than previous trips to Cincy. I wound up following one of OH's Scenic By-ways, US-52, that ran along the Ohio River. Along the way I passed factories, farmland, lush valley views, and nuclear power plants. I also rolled into one town's annual Tobacco Festival, where locals outlined the streets in folding-chairs, waiting for a parade to begin. I was at the end of a three-car-deep string of traffic, and after being on the road a lot earlier that day already... it was slightly surreal to be slicing through parade-route americana, on display for a few minutes. I'm just glad I got through there when I did, no telling how long I would have had to wait, or what back-woods wrong-turns I'd make upon detour. Two instances of getting stuck behind 50-mph drivers, with no legit place to pass also slowed things up a bit. Instead of turning into Johnny Impatient, I decided to soak in the sights of creation and let the travel work itself out... and it did...

because... my route eventually took me by the old Coney Island Amusement Park site (and a concert venue where Bob Dylan was playing that evening... I was just talking about him a few days ago, not a coincidence). I have pictures of the Cincinnati Coney Island in a book (Step Right Up Folks! - that's now out-of-print), showing the coasters and midways buried beneath water from a/the flood. Now I know where it was and the meandering, winding, OH River way led me there. I got in touch with Chip, found my way to his place, settled in for a minute, then went to eat in Newport at the Hoffbrauhaus... yah wohl! (BTW... I can dig Cincinnati. It has the appearance of being a big city, but oddly small and personal (except the impersonal one-way streets I had to battle after missing an exit, but even they were cool because I saw a fountain... and it had water in it).) Friday night blurred into scenes of conversation, making electronic music electronically, listening to other previously made music, looking up random YouTube videos, and watching/listening to people from the balcony as they made that increasingly intoxicated "heavy-step-walk and loud-talk" on their sojourns to/from the bars up the hill.

Then it was Saturday! ... late morning! ... almost afternoon!

... and on the way to KI we stopped at B-dubs (Buffalo Wild Wings - BW3s). I had like two glasses of pop/soda there, and took another one to go. And that's worth mentioning because by the time we made it off the exit, through the first long line of the day (traffic into the park), and on/off the first ride of the day ("the parking lot space in BFE, and front gate hike" ride), that third cup o' pop was sittin' large... and I nearly hurt someone with the “death ray gaze of panic” when I was halted mid-stride to the restroom and told I had to go through the metal detectors to get there. I hadn't gone primal yet, understood the request, and no one got soiled in the end. A few moments of running around secured our tickets, then we were through the gates, among the masses, in the park.

In the Park

I’m just going to make it known that the park was crowded… at least more crowded than the previous two times I’ve been there. It is the reason we only got in a few rides, even staying until 9:30pm. Had it been my home park, I would have possibly left without going in. But it wasn’t. I was expecting the crowds. And besides, the tickets were free, the company was good and I hadn’t driven all night with the outlook of driving all night back… we were 25 minutes down the road, and that reminder was gleeful throughout the day!

Right through the gates we saw and checked out the Diamondback display, complete with a Coaster Dynamix model of the new coaster. Great job on the model, guys! The videos, sounds, and images are the same as the ones on the KI-Diamondback web-site (which is awesome, BTW!)... and they had people captivated around the display all day. It looked like that scene from "A Christmas Story" with all the families and Ralphie plastered around the Higby's seasonal toy & Christmas window... eyes wide, and drooling at things to come.

Loafing around turned into a casual bee-line for the SOB (Son of Beast - the world's tallest & fastest wooden rollercoaster, previously with a loop). The loafing was actually an uncertain attempt at que-ing up for Delerium. The SOB won, and we waited about 40 minutes. While in line, I talked at length (about Sonny, ACE & life) with a great family from Jersey, after taking their group picture somewhere before the switchbacks leading up to the station. I hadn't ridden Sonny since 2002, and was curious about the break-in and re-mods (tracking, trains, loop bye-bye). We sat in row 4 (front row, second car).

This coaster is so huge. With over 2.5 million board-feet of lumber and God-knows how much steel, Son of Beast is truly an engineering marvel… and for that fact alone is praiseworthy. They actually had to build it in two stages. The first stage (with foundation, batter & other bracing, bents) up to 10 or 12 stories (I think), then the next 10 stories on top of that. “A coaster doomed from existence”… is what I heard one industry voice tell me in a meeting back in 2000. To explain the meaning of that would take a lot of time and memory-digging, but consider The Rattler, and the story is similar. As we took off from the station down the 60-foot dive to the hill (great start), I couldn’t help but get nervous in that “this sh** is for real” place within my heart. We are riding a monster, whose namesake still remains legendary… and I approached my climb up the hill in the way a surfer would approach paddling into an 80-plus foot wave in Hawaii… ready or not, committed, no turning back now.

Over the top and quickly around the towering turn to the 215 foot cliff… the first drop is better than I remember. It felt steeper for some reason, and the dive is decisively ground-hugging. Entering the "rose-bowl" (or first monstrous helix), I briefly glance at angled track way down there, and rush to meet it, shaking violently with the train the whole way through. (My opinion is the shaking I felt had to do with the lighter trains. They “felt lighter”. The heavier ones didn’t get thrown around as much, like a pickup truck weighed down with cinder blocks and sand bags in winter to keep it glued to the terrain better. But those who’ve been riding this coaster consistently through the years will have more qualified input.) Somewhere after bottoming out of the first dive into the helix, I decide to let go and ride this like the beast it is. I drifted and swayed as we crested, dove, shook, and circled through the second pass… up and onto the MCBR. Evidence of the loop’s demise became obvious as the brakes squeeze us to a crawl. I seem to remember cruising through the mid-course brakes with enough pacing to get a pop of air in the plummet approaching the loop… but not this time. We crept over the angled track, and down the hill, through the loop’s ghost, flying up to the second helix. (From the line, it looked like there might have been a small speed-bump where the loop once stood… but I noticed nothing while riding.) I can’t remember for sure where the accident took place that brought the train to a halt, but heading into the second spaghetti bowl, everything became hazy as my mind sifted the memory banks and processed the bents flying by. I snapped back in time to catch the deep-dip finale… and on to the brake run.

I think you have to ride Sonny like you do the back seat of Georgia Cyclone… and that would be in the same way you walk around a small boat in rough surf… with sea legs on, rolling with the hills and breakers.

Next up, while in the neighborhood, was Flight Deck. I missed riding this (as Vortex) at Canada's Wonderland (CW) several weeks ago… but had ridden it as Top Gun here previously. The track was looking rough! We had wondered how much a bid would go for the paint job on just the track… somewhere between 80 and 150 grand were our guesses. There was only a short, 15 minute wait for the front row of the last car. This coaster is pretty peppy. I like the first drop, not so much the speed-sucking rise to the second drop, and then really like the whole section off the second drop, through the ravine, and onto the break run. It’s no Big Bad Wolf (BBW)… but then it wasn’t designed to be… it’s Flight Deck. This goes in as my #2 suspended coaster... behind BBW… before Ninja and Iron Dragon (can’t remember if there’s any other I’ve ridden at the moment).

… and then came Delerium. I don’t care how sad the wait looks… this ride is a must. Max Air was closed the last time I went to Cedar Point (CP). Psyclone had to be cut out of my CW visit for time’s sake. So, Delerium was my first Giant Frisbee. Considering my decreasing tolerance for multi-directional centri-purge rides, it spun just fast enough for me to enjoy. The moments where you swing and spin to rush at the ground and see the sky next second are amazing. Everyone sitting around me was in agreement with our smiles and on-ride, approving commentary. I was looking so forward to Delerium and it is now my favorite, non-coaster, thrill ride.

Shuffling along, we finally get out of Action Zone and eventually found ourselves in line for the Blue Racer. This is the first time since my early years on Rebel Yell (RY) at Kings Dominion (KD) that I’ve seen the two coasters go forward. We waited two trains for our seats (front row, back car for me… and middle row, back car, for Chip). Although the previous two trains didn’t race, we in the Blue were given the option to go ahead or wait by show of hands. We remained in the station, to race Red. Pulling out of the station with a slight lead on Red, gave me such a sense of nostalgia… both with memories of KD and battles on RY, and for what it must have been like at KI back when Racer first opened (but it might have been going backwards then, so meh). During the race, I got so absorbed with watching the other train and waving to them, that I didn’t pick apart every inch of the ride experience. It was fun and we didn’t wait that long.

My friend wanted to check out Flight of Fear (FoF) w/o OTSRs (over-the-shoulder-restraints), and I hadn’t ridden KI’s version (having plenty of rides at KD), so we went there. A 2.5 hour wait, with full ques inside and out, kept us from going for it… and same went for Firehawk with its 120 minute wait and both of us having ridden X Flight, SFA (Six Flags America). I liked Firehawk’s colors! Passing up Vortex’s long line and getting suckered by the dead end once again, we got back around to check out Beast and Crypt.

After Beast, we would find out Crypt was closed… and remain so the rest of our day. That kind of sucked because I’d missed riding it as Tomb Raider, with the increasingly missing effects… but I wanted to see the themeing, and standing in the mouth of the cave with air conditioning leaking out was teasing on a h-a-w-t Saturday… oh well, let the Crypt’s cold breath rot in its cold belly until another visit. I wrestled the Beast instead.

Beast was kept on a short leash with trimmed moments coming down the first drop, through the brake shed, into the second drop, and a few other spots. That aside… this coaster still rocks. The main thing Beast has going for it is the nice, long, terrain-hugging, cruising ride that travels way out in the heavily wooded setting… and thankfully no development other than Diamondback is encroaching the Beast’s domain. That main thing is why this coaster still rocks… now, if only Cedar Fair would give enthusiasts just one night, one event, with brakeless/trim-less travels… *sigh*. The only issue that I have with Beast, is that I don’t have a t-shirt with just the original logo on it… something retro and simple (size XL, in black preferably).

We lingered around the Crypt area for a little while, shooting some video and photos of Diamondback’s footers hidden by flowers and pots. I had seen posts about that. Also one of the train engineers came walking out from behind the fence while we were peering over it at the rows of footers and cleared land in the developing areas, and pointed out the camouflaged foundations. I had a photo taken of me next to one of those footers that I’m totally going to go back and have re-taken next to the lift support, before/after style, once the massive coaster is finished. We proceeded to the train ride for more views and photos.

The train ride was chill… and I usually try to ride them if a park has one. They are, after all, older and more mature relatives to the wooden coasters we love… and they help you slow down and look around at life, instead of scream and tear through it… both scenarios having their place, of course.

Avatar would be our next ride. I’d seen it moving through the trees during the walk in from the parking lot. I had no idea KI got one of the “Disk-O Coasters”. Nice little surprise. The only thing I discovered was that it was the “Skater Coaster” model instead… which makes sense for the family aspect (if the coaster model is anything like the park model Disk-O I’ve ridden at DW (Dollywood), it could be a little extreme for the whole family). I enjoyed this ride a lot and was given a small glimpse of how it would be to lose control of a vehicle at various speeds, entering into a slow spin while traversing a freeway overpass (or mountainous highway). Wait! That’s totally happened to me (mountainous highway version) and I live to tell the tale. Thanks, Avatar, for the reminder!!!

We took a ride up Eiffel Tower, and did well jumping in line when we did, because shortly behind us, a crowd of about 30-40 more people piled up… and we were 5th/6th in line. From the top of ET we viewed… everything. Dusk was coming on the way, too. That’s a great time of day to get up the tower. The sun is just about to set, or setting. The temp’s cooling down a tad. The colors in the sky are more pronounced. The light is mellower. The colors start glowing in the main street fountains and on buildings and rides around the park. For the spiritually-considerate, or metaphysically-oriented person, ET is a good place to feel a little closer to home... I was also taking photos up there with my cell, but while on ET I didn't phone home.

Ok… so on that corny note, it's obvious I need to wrap this up. And I do that by saying the last thing I rode was Adventure Express (while Chip tried to find something to eat). AE is a better-than-average, mine train. I really like the back half, after the second lift. The track twists all around the valley, under the trees. And I KNEW I’d remembered some enclosed lift hill (with random themeing that featured stone statues pumping their fists to menacing music and speaking odd things) from one of the mine rides. AE is probably in the top 5 of my Arrow mine list. I’d have to think more than I want to currently about all the others I’ve been on and where they fall in the objective rankings.

Leaving the park followed this course: photos of fountains playing in vibrantly-colored water, buying a nerds rope and eating it quickly, finding a technical SOB shirt I liked and bought, photo of friend and I at KI sign in front of fountains, drooling again with the masses at the Diamondback display, talking with a couple of vampires pimping the Halloween Haunts hearse display at the entrance, walking the 4 miles back to the car, and rolling out like I’m about to right now.

Peace,

James

p.S. the Chinese restaurant in the strip mall near the park is open late and has tasty, fresh food that hit the spot and didn’t cost a crap-ton to enjoy.