Beast brakeless: why now?

Why has PKI taken away most of the Beast's brakes now?

Could it be that SOB is not the popular coaster they thought it would be, and that their real treasure is hidden in their own backward?

Ummmm no.

They realized it was time to update Beast to more appropriate and reliable 21st century technology.

Shaggy

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Shaggy
A.K.A. John K.

...Which was probably brought on by a little train-stopping problem last year. ;)

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

Why do you say SOB isn't the popular coaster they thought it would be. Plus, have you rode it this year, I think it will be more popular this year due to how smooth it is now. Whatever they did, it made me like a lot better. I liked it before but now I could ride it all day

*** This post was edited by Beast_rocks on 4/18/2002. ***

I agree with Beast_rocks. SoB is a great ride and PKI has done magic on it. Although I liked it better when I rode it on the media day. But I like wild and crazy coasters so that's probably just me.

I haven't ridden The Beast yet this year but from the POV that was posted PKI, again, did wonders. I think it'll be a whole lot better by the end of the summer.

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It's his turn to feast, when you ride the Son of Beast.

I think it will go about the same speed ( sans the frist drop ). They added trims at the second drop.. it still slows down in the shed... and there are breaks at the top of the helix drop. Still too much trimming!

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Women was god's second mistake.

The new brakes on The Beast are designed to provide approximately the same performance as the old brakes, with the exception of the first drop.

Why they decided they didn't have to trim the first drop anymore, I don't know. But the three points where the train is being trimmed now...top of the second hill, end of the mid-course, halfway down the helix drop...approximate the locations where it was trimmed before. The major change is that instead of 1,100' of trim brakes, the ride now has about 25' of brakes that are about 44X as effective.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I think saying SOB has been a failure for PKI is over the top but there's no question that it hasn't been received as warmly as they might have hoped. I know opening season lines were usually quite reasonable (when it was open that is...).

I don't think I've ever waited more than an hour for the SOB (and that was for front and back seat rides) while other times it was a "Walk on up to the ramp" kind of line, and this was opening season! Meanwhile the original Beast *always* has lines as it has for decades now. People *like* SOB but *love* Papa. I guess none of this should be surprising, the Beast is somewhat of a living legend at this point but it *is* worth mentioning since other modern legends like Magnum have seen their lines destroyed by newer installs; the difference in this case being that SOB was just an all around mediocre coaster, and no amount of marketing can hide the fact once you take a ride on it.
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