GCI / Funworld Article

It's good reading--check it out:

http://www.funworldmagazine.com/2006/aug/features/he_overcome/heovercome.html

Great props to our own Coasterpunk in that article!

Awesome article.

Great article and very good read.

No doubt on the lineage of rollercoaster builders has been a straight line with forks since the late 1800's starting with Lemarcus Thompson and John Miller. Every company since can trace their teachers back to them and their students became the next gens teachers all the way to todays GCI and CCI and even S&S.

That's probably very true, Chuck. I think that's a great way to look at the heritage of the American coaster. It's more than engineers just building stuff and making it work- it's a tradition.

There's really a lot more culture to the American coaster than most people realize.

Slight correction MD. The American wooden coaster :)

:)
Chuck

Excellent article.

Now if only Hershey would just get those MF trains onto Wildcat. The "teeth rattling, bone shaking experience" mentioned in the article hit really close to home for me last week-- literally.

(I'd insert a smiley with rattling teeth here, if there were one).

Close enough, Chuck. ;)

Though I'm willing to bet that Morgan and Bacon picked up some influence from the greats of woodies back in the days of early Arrow.

Arrows certainly have laterals. ;)

That's very true, Matt.

Though I don't think that instantaneous accelerations and elastic collisions are the most desireable sort of laterals. ;)

Wow, what a great article. I had no idea what happened to Clair in Indiana, and now I know why Mike went into semi-retirement. A very interesting read.

ENORMOUS props to Clair, Jeff, Chris, Mike, Dan and all our friends at GREAT Coasters International...now with 100% more "international". ;)

You all (Southern term, hehe) ROCK in so many ways... :)

If I could afford to, I'd *volunteer* to work for GCII...doing things "the way they SHOULD be done", that's increasingly (and sadly) rare these days...
*** Edited 8/9/2006 5:56:36 PM UTC by rollergator***

Are you saying GCI does things the way they SHOULDN'T be done? ;)

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RatherGoodBear said:

Now if only Hershey would just get those MF trains onto Wildcat. The "teeth rattling, bone shaking experience" mentioned in the article hit really close to home for me last week-- literally.

(I'd insert a smiley with rattling teeth here, if there were one).

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Ditto on that for me...last time I went to HP, and rode Wildcat with my fiancee, we both agreed it was the roughest we've ever had a ride on it...we were both like "what the hell happened to that ride"? This thought of the MF trains going onto Wildcat makes me happy :)

My company just had its picnic at HP yesterday at the Wildcat catering area. A few of us were sitting there watching the trains come through the turn closest to the midway (right before the picture). You could literally see individual riders' heads shaking from about 100 feet away.

Revenue for Wildcat pictures has probably dropped off since everyone has a look of agony, pain, or WTF. Who wants that kind of HP memory?

They could move the on-ride photo to the brake run like on Great Bear, where the look on the rider's face is "WTF?"!