'Good Year" tire falls from Top Thrill Dragster

I can say that on 5/23 there weren't any tires on (and ran reliably between about 3:00 and 6:00, the exact times I was able to wait in line and subsequently ride it). On 5/24, the tires were all back on.

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"Well, I'm sure I'd feel much worse if I weren't under such heavy sedation." - David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
http://www.loopscrew.com

lol, sure it wasn't a Firestone tire? :)

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Scooby High Score: 1830 as of May 3!

pkidelirium, that's funny - I said the same thing to the ride op when I finally got off the ride and I don't think he appreciated the humor.

But seriously, imagine if the left tire had come off - instead of shearing off and bouncing under the Iron Dragon, it could have landed in the queue. Talk about a disaster....

But the image of one of the tires bouncing merrily along its way underneath the Iron Dragon is kind of funny, you have to admit. I'm glad you got to ride, Realmadrid. I felt bad because I stood in the line as long as you did and just happened to be the lucky one who was the last to ride before it was shut down. How long did you have to wait before it was up and running again?

If any of you have ever seen the show ''Hey Arnold,'' you could definetly picture the Eugene kid gettin' whacked by a giant rubber. -Tire that is.

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Well, I used to be able to see TTD from my house, then I moved.
Life's not fair.

PhantomTails said:
Johnnyecks, a tire fell off and harmlessly bounced away. I admit that some injury *could* have resulted because of this, but what else happened that makes you think that TTD is unsafe?
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Six Flags Worlds of Adventure Online

What else??? You're pretty young, aren'tcha. It's not dangerous unless someone actually gets hurt, or killed.

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I'm not an enthusiast. I just play one on message boards.

My God.....the dry humor running through my mind right now! Draggin' Iron did need a wheel replaced last time I rode it.....perhaps it's just a kind gesture from it's new neighbor. :)

Seriously though, safety is #1, and I just hope they can find a way to fix this problem. The tires aren't necessary, but they really make those trains what they are visually. Hmmm....how about adding a real live pit crew at the launch to tighten the tires before each run? Now that is theming!
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Brad Sherman
"What the #$@*? Tastes like salted ant puke" - B&M Guy referring to pizza flavored Combos

"Good Year" tire? More like "BAD YEAR" tire!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111

TAER IT DOWN!!!111

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Is that a Q-bot in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

realmadrid311 said:
The tire bounced along the break run actually bounced over the electrical building and landed under iron dragon somewhere. I was in the left lane just about to enter the station when it happoned at 11:30. They took the blue train off, then the green one for some reason but left the tires on the other three trains. I finally got on at alomost 1.
They kept running the other trains with tires on after this happened and before looking into the cause? That's scary! I would think that the ride should have been closed immediately. I'm surprised that CP would keep a ride with such an obvious safety problem running.

Its funny that this post was submitted last night, because TTD had all its Good Year Tires REMOVED LAST WEEK on all the trains. I didn't realize it was April 1st already.

They were back on for the past weekend - well mostly ;)

Edit: And I absolutely love the idea of a pit crew! Not only is it a fun way of CP to make fun of themselves, it'd add to the realism! If I worked on the TTD crew, I'd be beating my head against a wall by now - if its not a computer failure, its a guest puking, a tire falling off, then the wire snapping ...

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"You know we got a good thing goin and I don't wanna see it end" --Reel Big Fish
-- Brett
*** This post was edited by PittDesigner 5/27/2003 9:12:02 AM ***

None of the tires where on yesterday, and for that matter, neither were the engines and spoilers!

That's because the vibrations from the train were literaly shaking the motors right off the train.

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"Sometimes I just kill myself!" - The Joker

While I admit the trains look super neat-o special with the motor, spoiler and tires, I was still kind of surprised they put them there because that's room for two seats. That's about 180 more people they could service per hour (when they reach interval).

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM
*** This post was edited by Jeff 5/27/2003 10:37:11 AM ***

After seeing the trains with all of the "fixings", the looked really "naked" yesterday without the tires, spoilers, and engines. I do like the idea, Jeff, of adding two more seats to the ride.

-Mikey

Another fine swiss engineering job. Kind of scares me that I actually waited three & a half hours to ride it yesterday (one hour 15 minutes of downtime). However, I am also confused on the posting date, since the tires were removed the weekend of CoasterBuzz Con 2.

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Goccvp1

SFGAm...When you need a good example of a SF park, this is where you look.

john peck said:
None of the tires where on yesterday, and for that matter, neither were the engines and spoilers!

I was at CP on Sunday (the 25th) and all the "fixins" (tires, spoilers, engines) were on all the trains. What a difference a day can make.

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www.coasterimage.com
Dorney Park Visits in 2003: 4

All the stuff was on the trains Mon., before the ride opened. The tires, engines and wings were removed from the trains before the ride opened to the public.

First off Pete, I want to say it was nice meeting you (Don, who was with Scott) yesterday (had you not mentioned in another post about your boat engine, I wouldn't have figured out who you were).

Secondly, when we got there at 9:30am, the engines and the spoilers were the only things on the trains. I'm not saying the tires weren't on the trains that morning (since Joe Cool and hotel guests could get in at 9:00), I'm just saying that by 9:30am the tires were gone, so I had no idea they ever put the tires back on the trains. Hence my confusion about the original date of this thread.

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Goccvp1

SFGAm...When you need a good example of a SF park, this is where you look.

I was at the park this morning from 9-1, and the engines and tires have been removed from all the Dragster trains. There's just a flat empty space behind the last row of seats where the engines used to be. The maintenance workers looked like they were doing their best to put the new cable on, and signs at the gates said the ride might reopen later today.

I guess the axle/suspension system isn't quite up to F1 standards there...I wonder how much it would cost to put a good carbon fiber system in...those things handle 5,000+ lbs. downloads on them and rarely break (except for poor Firman at Interlagos this year...it looks pretty impressive when an F1 suspension explodes under braking).

I'm honestly surprised that the wheels are in any way mounted to an axle. I would think that they'd just bolt the entire wheel assembly directly to the train's frame, it'd be a much less failure prone setup. The wing, I would imagine, is setup to create as little drag/downforce/upforce as possible, so I can't imagine that it would be that much of a problem.

The engine should be an integral part of the train's frame as well. It almost sounds like this entire thing was bolted on at the last minute with parts that would never be used on a real race-car, or anything else that would be regularly moving at 120mph with a few positive G's here and there...