HP finally gives us a name Nov. 5th

I hope its renegade, It jsut rolls off the tounge and seems to have alot more power then the rest of them, but thats just my opinion.

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Family Guy: "Oh no,Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh yeah"

My vote went for Renegade too. Hershey seems to like meteorological terms though as evidenced by Comet and Lightning Racer.
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Nashville needs a theme park!

Technically, IF you include Comet as a "meteoroglical" term (though it is more "astronomy"), then you could put Great Bear into that camp too... not named after the animal, but rather after the constelation Ursa Major (the most famous formation in that constelation being the Big Dipper... Hence another possible coaster conenction)... although I do not think there is a pattern to the names... Comet was named in 1946... Lightning Racer in 2000. The other 6 coasters in those 54 years (8 if you count the short lived Twin Toboggans) had nothing to do with meteorology, astronomy, or anything else.

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"I don't believe it!" - Victor Meldrew

I'll throw in that I thought Storm Runner was the best of a very weak set of three names. I think that a coaster name should reflect what the thing is - I think both CF and SF do a good job with this type of thing. Raptor for an invert, Superman for extremely fast or launched rides, Dragster for an extreme launch, Xcelerator for an extreme launch, but here comes Hershey naming an extreme launch ...

For a western theme? If there's one thing I don't associate huge steel loops and powerful launches with, its the old west, so the only name that seemed to hold any kind of power was Storm Runner, the runner being the launch, the storm being the steel and complimenting Lightning Racer. I don't know, I thought all three names were really weak, but I'm glad its Storm Runner, its the least western of the three.

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Brett
Resident Launch Whore

And don't forget the coasters with vowels in their names. I'd bet my pants that the new coaster will have a vowel in its name. Hershey's trying to establish a trend here.

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Be polite and ignore the idiots. - rollergator
"It's not a Toomer" - Arnold Schwartzenkoph
"Those who know don't talk and those who talk don't know." -Jeff

So what is it?
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Nashville needs a theme park!

Storm Runner

See signature.
Oops, spelled Vertical wrong. Corrected in future signatures.
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Storm Runner-Verticle Horsepower
*** This post was edited by Intamin Fan 11/5/2003 9:59:21 PM ***

I was really pulling for Harry Joseph Runner...

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"Did I say 'corpse hatch?' I meant 'innocence tube.'"
- Montgomery Burns

ApolloAndy said:
I don't know how Storm Runner has any theming potential.

I would do almost exactly what Knott's did with Ghostrider...dark, cloudy, stormy night, lightning, FLASH! - you're launched....of course, I'm wrong more often than not....then again, I do a LOT of guessing...;)

But how can you tie the storm in with the Western. I mean you can have a stormy night in a western town, but to have the two theming ideas actually combine?
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Be polite and ignore the idiots. - rollergator
"It's not a Toomer" - Arnold Schwartzenkoph
"Those who know don't talk and those who talk don't know." -Jeff

I'm impressed. It was 7:23pm on the GIANT Center clock when the official announcement was made on the video board. I told my wife "They said it would be announced in a Sweetmail at 7:30pm... by 7:33pm you will have people on the boards complaining about the name."

Not all that worried about theming. Hershey is not big on theming.... and there is nothing wrong with that. I would take a good ride with little or no theming (example: Phoenix) over a mediocre ride with great theming (example: Dueling Dragons).

On the presentation on the center ice scoreboard before the game, they had somewhat of an impressive looking little film... starting out with an old western type of person walking across a desert. Then there was some sort of western character (not sure if it was an outlaw, or a sheriff... he was kind of mean looking... in a "theme park entertianment show" sort of way... talking about the coater coming to town). Then John Walton, radio broadcaster for the Bears, took over and told about the voting... "And it wasn't even close..." and then announced the name "Storm Runner" and the logo... some sort of charging horse in a cloud (a storm cloud? or a cloud of dust?). They did show the computer generated POV video that is on their web site... could see it much better on the scoreboard video screen than on my PC. When showing the different elements of the coaster, they borrowed from other installations.... not sure if it was TTD or Xcelerator... Then they had a little video image of the new coaster running at HP... not bad combination of Computer Generated images (the new coaster) with acutal footage from the park.

The announcement got a good bit of applause from the 7,700+ fans at the game.

Not a bad night...

1) Received a free pass to the park when entering GIANT Center

2) Heard the "official" announcement of the name Storm Runner (even though it was pretty much known before hand)

3) Saw a 7-3 Bears win over the St.Johns Maple Leafs.

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"I don't believe it!" - Victor Meldrew

I personally like the logo. Also of note, there are updated pictures on the site from November 4th for any of you who are interested. A couple of footers are poured and there are some shots of the supports being placed. I'm glad HP is having coverage of the construction.

http://www.hersheypa.com/attractions/hersheypark/new_attraction/gallery/index.html

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I'm a loser.

Has anyone noticed the dual load/unload station? It looks like Intamin might be trying out a new method similar to the B&M (SFOG S:UF) and Vekoma flying coasters. At least that's how it looks the way the supports are arranged in the latest photo update on Hershey's website.

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2003 - A season of meeting many new people, enjoying great times, seeing them accomplish goals that were thought to be impossible, and bringing back reality to all - Please Ride Responsibly
*** This post was edited by NegativeG-Force 11/6/2003 10:18:26 PM ***

If they continuously play REO Speedwagon's 'Ridin' The Storm Out' on a loop in the station.... I'm not riding it.

A quick construction update:
As of this afternoon, all of the track steel located in the station has been set, with the exception of the transfer shuttle (which is actually outside the station). This is so that building construction on the station can continue. The forms are also up for the walls for the launch building and will probably be poured next week. Relocation of utilities (gas, chilled water, electric) in the hollow area, near Trailblazer Theatre and Aquatheatre is progressing.