SOB as the season has gone on...

I have ridden SOB some 20 or 30 times this season and have noticed a trend....Sonny is following the same path as Mean Streak. Early in the season, SOB was smooth (relatively speaking for a 200+ foot woodie). As the season has gone on, Sonny has gotten progressively rougher. The "washboarding" at the base of the first drop is coming back (it never really left, but is becoming more evident), the shaking and violent beating throughout the ride is getting worse and the worst of all, the jolt at the top of the second hill is coming back.

I have stood and watch people getting off this ride all summer and more and more people are getting off complaining about the "beating" they have received from Sonny. I want nothing more then to see this coaster become a success, but I am beginning to doubt it will ever happen. Sonny's reputation as a bruiser is getting out and this is evident from it's demising lines (I waited a mer 1/2 hour on Sunday 8/20). PKI has a reputation for building and maintaining woodies, let's just hope that they can get a handle on Sonny and keep that reputation.

Actually, the first time I rode it (Memorial Day), it was the roughest I have experienced. It's getting smoother.

It was not bad at all when I rode. No "beating" just some vibration.

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DOWN WITH TRIM BRAKES!

It's lines must be going down.
When I was there August 9th, we rode it twice and waited about 15 - 20 minutes each time. My friends and I were extremely surprised. Maybe PKI will never need the to use the third train. I really liked the ride, and yes it was rough, but not any rougher than any good woodie should be. I did notice that the trains didn't seem to take the turns too well.

SOB reminds me of Mean Streak as well. It is visually stunning, but it rides rough and airless. The helixes look great, but are really not enjoyable. I believe it will suffer the same fate as Mean Streak as well; brake the life out of it so the GP will ride, and PKI will take its lumps from all the coaster heads.

Why don't some people understand that some rollercoaster are NOT built for airtime?

If anyone know this please tell me.

And also you really can't see the helixes unless you are on the ride or on some other ride. That means that you don't really get time to look at the ride.

I rode it last week and had no problem with the ride. The Beast is a rougher ride than SOB.

The Beast (which USED TO BE my favorite coaster) is currently a lot rougher than SOB. Can PKI say "maintenance"?

I have to disagree with you about The Beast being rougher then Sonny. Sonny is not even a year old yet, and the ride is rough. It shakes, shimmies and tries to fights its way around the course. Sonny tracks worse then any coaster I have been on.

The Beast on the other hand is 21 years old and still delivers a great ride. There is a difference in rough and intense. The only part of The Beast that could be considered rough is the final helix, and it is not rough just intense.

I've ridden Sonny about 10 times and the rides I had on Sunday, 8/20, were the smoothest I've had yet. Granted I only ride in the middle row of any given coach. I find it getting smoother over the season, not rougher. The Beast, however, was it's normal self regarding roughness, which on Sunday was rougher than Sonny.

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Scott W. Short
scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com

We rode Son on a ACE walkback a couple weeks ago. Yes it was a little rough but no where near as what we were told it was. Later in the day we rode The Beast. The ride was brutal. Yes I expected to get knocked around a little bit, but that was an all out assault. Watching how those trains were behaving made me more than a little nervous.