Ed Hart takes press on a tour of Kentucky Kingdom

"Hart-Lunsford Pictures?"

Serious question: Is Hart in the movie business? If so, I never knew that.

According to ACE the park will be opening on May 24th 2014. The park was added to their Spring Con event May 16-18th.

In shots #9 and 14 in the slideshow, what coaster is that? My one visit was in '07 and it looks unfamiliar to my eye.

T2 - the Vekoma SLC.

Thanks, Gonch. I rode it. I guess my mind blocked it out, being that it was such a memorable, wonderful, smooth ride.

What's T2 mean again? Terror Squared? What a stupid name. Hart should rename it. And I don't think it will be ready until 2015, right? And if so, why would it take so long?

I think it was Terror to the Second Power. We went to KK on opening day to try it out and we had several rides on it. It was the very first of the Vekoma Hang n Bangs, and I think that moniker was derived from the painful rides T2 delivered.
I don't know what came along to improve the ride experience on subsequent models, the next one might've been Opryland's Hangman or maybe Morey's Nor'Easter? I do know T2 had a shorter train, by a car or two, and opinion was that the longer train on later rides reduced a lot of the push-pull shuffle and the banging.
Anyway, the name sticks even though Vekoma has produced something like 70+ of those models and now they're everywhere. Surely one of Vekoma's most prolific models, right? I bet if your home park doesn't have a B&M inverted it's got one of these...

Or in the case of La Ronde , you have both. :)

If my recollection of math is correct, "Terror to the Second Power" = T^2....whereas T2 is equivalent to T*2.

Pretty sure the intent was for the first of those...

Yeah, but T^2 looks dumb and typing superscript is hard and stuff.

So you get T2.

RCMAC said:

Vekoma has produced something like 70+ of those models and now they're everywhere.

I had no idea there were that many out there. Are any of those 70+ actually smooth and enjoyable like a B&M invert? This must have been a product that succeeded because of a lower price or something...

I don't mind most of em. The Geauga model that lives at Michigan's Adventure now was pretty smooth, I recall the one at Darien not being too bad either. Canada's Wonderland has one too that I've been on. Really, I don't find em to be all that bad, T2 was the only really rough one, IMO.

A lot of the rides they produced live outside the US and some have slightly different layouts, too. In quickly checking RCDB for this type of ride I count maybe 19 or 20 that have appeared in North America. Since I'm a credit ho if I run across one I always have to get on it for my list. I've wasted quite a bit of time at some parks waiting to ride the duplicate of a coaster I've already been on several different places. Same thing happens with the Boomerang.

I guess the one at Morey's has nice new restraints that are much more comfortable and less restricting.

I recall the one at Wild Adventures being downright rideable back when it was called Hangman. Haven't been there in a long time. T2 is probably the single worst one I've ever ridden.

Like a B&M invert? No.

Smooth and enjoyable? With varying results.

Lord Gonchar said:
Smooth and enjoyable? With varying results.

That's what she said.

Hangman at WA was definitely one of the better ones I've been on. And I haven't been on the great Nor'Easter in a few years, but it had definitely improved from my previous rides.

Yes, T2 means "Terror to the second power". It also ran with 3 7-car trains at one point. Weird, huh?

I've ridden quite a few SLC's. Wild Adventures and Geauga's being the best, T2 and Serial Thriller at Astroworld (now La Ronde) being the worst.

Hart is buying 2 new trains for T2, so hopefully they can get its problems remedied.

Apparently I've ridden a couple of the better SLC's then. Still, while they weren't terrible, I just kept thinking about how much better B&M's product was. Either Vekoma was beating them in price, or there were a lot of B&M exclusivity agreements around. ;-)

Well, an off-the-shelf SLC is gonna be WAY less expensive than a custom B&M. Like barely comparable.

Okay, that makes sense now. I didn't realize the SLC's were cloned in mass like their Boomerangs. Oh, and if Wikipedia is accurate, there are just 39 installations.