Greatest US steel looper back up and DELIVERING...

Shockwave, SFoT, is running....and running like crazy. Do yourself a favor and get to Arlington....

The park was really quiet today, made an impromptu side-trip out of the SchlitterCon adventure...

Have fun at HWN everybody... :)

P.S. SFoT totally crushes Charmland... ;)

You're going to SchlitterCon?

Awesome, so am I.

Hope to see you there then!

I was just surprised it was running before Memorial Day after hearing about the trackwork. Hooray for Tejas!

For the record - the two steel loopers that will not leave my top ten are the two Antons, SFoT's and SFoG's. No one else combines loops and airtime...although I know Premier *could*, if properly motviated... ;)

Runaway Mtn, Freeze, Titan, B:TR, Giant....this park is THE megapark for....some hours in tomorrow, then down for SFFT/SWT before heading to New Braunfels. I'll be the mildly-fat middle-aged Floridian who won't leave the "lazy" river... ;)

*** Edited 5/22/2008 12:13:45 AM UTC by rollergator***

Mildly-fat-middle aged, lol. That about sums up Gator. Love ya Bill. Have fun, we'll miss you Friday and Saturday.

What Lori said! :)

Take care of our Shockwave, Bill! Oh and sorry, I couldn't wait for you to go to Seabreeze. You'll love it though!

I don't agree with your opinion, but it is your opinion. Shockwave was up two and a half weeks ago at least. I think it might have been up in April. Where were you? I went on it. I have no idea what the heck they did with it. The track looks the same to me.

Nevermind, you are right. It's Deja Vu. Just look at the neon green, and blue, and I see the vu. The green was a little bit different, but the color scheme is awesome in my opinion.

For Shockwave, I get 3 airtimes on this ride, and the g's in the loop are grey out material. I do really like Shockwave, but Deja Vu is what I think is the greatest steelie, and Shockwave does remind me of Deja Vu. *** Edited 5/22/2008 2:13:17 AM UTC by Spinout***

They just replaced sections of the steel track. They didn't reprofile the ride or anything exciting. ;)

And for the record, it's the second best steel looper in the US! ;)

They didn't even do that much. The existing track and framework for a couple of short sections was removed, disassembled, cleaned up, and reassembled. That's why it's nearly impossible to tell what was refurbished.

Have fun, Bill! It was great catching up with you yesterday. We will miss you this weekend!

I will think about you while I am riding Voyage. ;)

-Tina

^^ Why would they remove the track to do that? Wouldn't it have made sense to refurbish the sections while still attached? Unless there's something that I'm missing?

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rollergator said:
For the record - the two steel loopers that will not leave my top ten are the two Antons, SFoT's and SFoG's. No one else combines loops and airtime...although I know Premier *could*, if properly motviated... ;)

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Have you ridden Maverick Bill?

Dangit Bill, you should've let me know you were coming down here.

In any case, I *still* don't get the Anton love. And maybe I'm jaded from, but I haven't been to oT since I moved here nearly as much as I went to SFNE or SFGAdv. when they were my home parks.

Andy, Andy... I will trade all of Great Adventure for just Shockwave!

Mind Bender and Shockwave pwn Maverick. If Mav was lapbars only, it would be a closer race, but I prefer not to be stapled so Anton still wins. :)

Well, I haven't been on El Toro (which I assume is the best in the park), but I'd gladly trade shockwave for any of the B&M's we don't already have, chiller (if it still was at GAdv.), or even KK...I might trade it for GASM and Skull mountain (so much better than Runaway mountain) together. GAdv. can keep RT, though. Haven't done dark knight but since we just got Tony Hawk, I'd probably keep Shockwave.

I like Mindbender, but out of 230 some odd coasters it's not in the top 50.

Different strokes for different folks. After all, Magnum is still my favorite coaster. Go figure.

Can someone please explain to me why these coasters are so highly regarded. Don't get me wrong, I had fun on Mindbender, but I didn't get off of it thinking "Wow!". I enjoyed the loops with the free-feeling trains, and I got a very small pop of airtime at the top of a few hills. But it was nothing that I haven't felt on other coasters (other than the lack of the OTSR).

Did I miss something? Was it running slow? I much preferred Goliath and even Georgia Cyclone over Mindbender...

For me, it's the fact that these coasters aren't just about inversions. Look at the rides that Arrow used to build, and even some B&Ms. After the first drop, it's nothing but inversion after inversion after inversion. Mindbender and Shockwave (never ridden the latter but it's obviously cast from a similar mold as the Georgia ride) have loops but they also have dramatic drops and intense moments of positive g's. It's like Schwarzkopf understood that it was necessary to retain certain coaster elements while working in steel, while Arrow and B&M figured that traditional elements had to be cast aside.

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Rob Ascough said:
^^ Why would they remove the track to do that? Wouldn't it have made sense to refurbish the sections while still attached? Unless there's something that I'm missing?

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I won't pretend like I have any idea why they did it that way, but that is what I was told. I suspect it might have something to do with the task being easier to accomplish in the comfortable confines of a machine shop rather than by hanging 50 feet in the air in a boom lift basket.

...over a river that floods regularly, especially around this time of year.

On the side that I think that Shockwave is that good, I will say that it has probably the most intense loops, and the airtime can be incredible. Goliath, and Georgia Cyclone are also in that category, but how many rides don't have the incredible airtime in my opinoin?

I don't think that Raging Bull, and Titan have the incredible airtime like Shockwave. Superman: Ride of Steel does though. That's just my opinion though.