Drachen Fire Rumors Dispelled-or Not?

I hate to reference other message boards here, but on a popular coaster-related newsgroup, a recent post by a Busch Gardens Rep has been made to clarify the Drachen Fire saga.

Now, many on said newsgroup are sadly doubting the authenticity of the Rep, but I for one think that it is an true official statement made to help dispel the rumors Busch is tired of reading./ hearing.

Basically it says what many know. That the cost of maintaining DF outweighed the ride's actual value in revenue and ridership. The park's corporate offices felt that the money would be best spent on future attractions at the park.

It really is not brain surgery. Think of it in general terms. Like a bakery for instance. If a bakery makes 100 lemon filled doughnuts and no one buys them, then they must throw them away at the end of the day. Then they decide to not waste money on making more lemon filled doughnuts because there is no revenue generated from offering them. Instead they sink the time and ingrediants into making other types of doughnuts that people enjoy and spend money on ;-)

Let's just call Drachen Fire a big Lemon Doughnut from now on.

Shaggy

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Shaggy
A.K.A. John K.

Lemon Doughnuts suck, and its true. If a roller coaster has low ridership, there is no reason to keep it. Especially if the upkeep expense is high. But why would the upkeep for drachen fire be expensive? (If it is expensive). If that were the case, then are other arrow loopers from that time period expensive to upkeep.

Hey....I happen to like Lemon-filled jelly doughnuts!

put it this way, you're not missing anything by not riding it. it was a dog right from the get-go.

well I am not a metlugist or anything but I would assume those bad transitions were not only hard on the passengers but also the track. then again I don;t know.

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All at once the ghosts come back reeling you in now.

It would be great to have a floorless in DF's layout - and crank up the lift hill height too! Then put in that extra element they took out in the nineties.

Tolian:

Bad transitions come in a couple of varities. Some can be hard on the track, and some are just hard on your head. In fact some of the hard on your head ones are actually easier on the track than a well designed transition. Minimizing the acceleration that your head experiences can require increasing the acceleration of the much greater mass of the train.

After riding Drachen Fire once, my headache was bad enough that I didn't want to try it again to determine just what kind of bad transitions it has.

...gotta wonder....what flavor Doughnut was the ill-fated WindJammer? My vote is for those nasty raspberry-filled!

Nah, raspberry is good. How about cream-left-in-the-sun-too-long?

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--Greg
"The collective women in your life have more baggage than a Samsonite factory..."
My page

virginiareelfan....it wasn't a dog from the get-go, but it did evolve into one, or so it seems. I rode it in it's opening month, and it was amazing. Regardless, it is GONE and that is it. Leave the "legend" alone............:(
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www.tripowered.com

The ride was rough... hardly anyone rode it because of that... Busch couldn't justify operating and maintaining a ride that didn't satisfy too many park guests, and subsequently decided to remove the ride...

Why is this so hard for people to understand?

There is no huge conspiracy going on here, it was an unpopular ride and Busch acted with their best finacial interests in mind. Its simple, really.

(I am intending this post not for the ones who publicly mourn the loss of a good coaster like I am doing, but rather those who won't let these senseless rumors die with the coaster)

*** This post was edited by Rob Ascough on 3/5/2002. ***

Does anyone else ge the feeling that Drachen Fire conspiracy theories will join conspiracy theories on the Lincoln and Kennedy assasinations?

Of course not. (Shh......the CIA is listening!)

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- Peabody

Yeah, the ride was rough, but I loved it. I guess that's just not everybody's cup of tea. I also hear that a lot of people didn't ride it because it was in an obscure location and had difficulty finding it? Well, I guess that Busch, and other parks should take heed to that message, "You can lead a horse with a park map, but ya can't make it ride".

All in all, I bid DF a fond farewell, and hope they put in something great to replace it. Just not in that spot.

Ok people, I will put it to you this way. If you want to know what happened, there is a way to find out. Know a rep at busch gardens who is legit. Not an employee, a rep there. Anyone who does know the real reason is not going to say it until it has been made official. There are people who have guessed correctly, but the truth has already been said by guessing, you figure it out. And please do not flood buschgardens.com with emails, there will be no reply sent out to questions like "Why was Drachen Fire removed" or "Did a lot of people want it gone". There will be no replies.

Eh, in the end the consensus on RRC was that that post was a load of scrap. I'm not too sure I believe the "rep" either.

It's what you get when you push the envelope. Sometimes you succeed. Sometimes you fail. How many people died playing in transonic space before 1947?

I really liked DF. I really like lemon donuts too.

It's like the Gee Bee air racers back in the 20s. The gamble any pilot made in them was simple: you win or you die. Pushing the envelope.

Don't forget the people who died discovering the shifts in center of pressure at around Mach 2.3.

For the person who wrote it to be an official PR person or any head honcho over at the Gardens, they sure do like to insult other people. It's an obvious fake.

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.:| Brandon Rodriguez |:.
http://www.coasters2k.com

nasai, I hope you're not telling me Legend is headed in the same direction...LMAO. Now I'm the one starting rumors...

P.S. The NW trip is still "spinning its wheels". I'll e-mail you once something starts getting nailed down. Even Jill is excited about Silverwood now...but it's been so long in discussion phase, I'm now getting psyched for the Fair...go figure!

Bottom line, it's gone. It was a bad coaster. It did not serve Busch's purposes well.

I say move on. It is not important or detrimental to coastering.

Shaggy... who is still frustrated that such a bad coaster could generate such intrigue.

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Shaggy
A.K.A. John K.