I-305 major change?

Clint Novak just posted a photo on FB that shows cranes and several sections of track removed from I-305's second hill. I have no idea what is going on and won't even speculate at this point.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v127/columbusframer/I-305ClintNovak.jpg

Hopefully their re-profiling the first turn so that they can remove the trims. If I remember correctly there's a ton of room back there.

Well I have to assume that this is the reprofile of that first turn that alot of us saw coming. The one thing that doesn't make any sense though, is that if this is in fact a reprofile of that turn then why have they removed the track pieces that they have.

The removed pieces in that picture are the drop off the second hill, not the lead into it. The removal of those pieces lead me to believe that the entire turn and the second hill will get reprofiled...which if that is true, then man was this ride designed wrong.

I'm on the side where I don't know if it was designed "wrong" per se, but maybe they were just trying to really push it to the limits of sustainable G's, and people just didn't like it. I've never been on it, so I can't really judge.

I just hope that if they do re-profile the turn and hill, it works out. Imagine if they re-do the track, it still makes people black out, and then they have to turn the trims back on anyway.

Just saw Clint's pics myself. Amazing. Sure hope Sandor's picking up the tab! ;)

CPcisco said:
The removed pieces in that picture are the drop off the second hill, not the lead into it.

No it's not. That photo is taken from the road behind the park.

The train would be coming at you on that hill.

Correct, the uphill section of track is what's missing.

Interesting....

The turn, in my opinion was great despite the grayouts, but I'm still young and have a very high tolerance for extreme rides. If the turn is less intense/grayout inducing for the sake of no trims, count me in. This makes the coaster much more enjoyable for the masses opposed to me, the minority coaster nerd. Was it designed wrong, I don't think so. Did they have too high of expectations for rider tolerance, most likely.

One would assume that KD would prefer to operate the ride without trims (or graying out public), which would allow them to publicize/promote the higher speed to the public (I am having trouble believing this to be a wheel issue). Assuming this thought is correct, and the downward side of the hill after the turn is still in place, how could one re-shape the ride to make the greying out go away, yet still connect to the original track? Is a pull out to a high overbank turn (i.e. MF) the solution?

I found the following on roller coaster database note section on I-305.

"When the Intimidator 305 opened it advertised a top speed of 94 mph. Changes made to the ride in the first few months reduced this and now "in excess of 90 miles per hour" is the advertised speed. This site previously listed the speed at 79.5 mph based on information from a very reliable source. This source has however since stated the 79.5 mph was a typo and 89.5 mph was the intended speed.

By way of comparison, the Millennium Force at Cedar Point has a 300' drop -- the same as the Intimidator 305. The Millennium Force advertises a top speed of 93 mph. This would mean the additional braking added to the Intimidator 305's first drop reduce the speed by no more than 3 mph -- enthusiasts who have ridden the ride before and after find this hard to believe. Another comment made is that the Intimidator 305 initially went in excess of the intended 94 mph speed. This too is hard to believe as mathematically an object in freefall in a frictionless environment can only achieve 94.7 mph after a 300' drop.

There are clearly some shenanigans going on here, but by who and by how much has yet to be determined."

I'm not at all surprised that they are reprofiling the ride, and this is exactly why I'm so glad that I got on this thing this past summer.

Smokes! Cedar Fair just has the best luck with Intamin.

Maybe the '11 installations should have been called "Reliability-Seekers"? ;)

delan said:
Smokes! Cedar Fair just has the best luck with Intamin.

Honestly, I think CF is more to blame here. They could have had Intamin come in and build a tweaked version of MF, there is plenty of land back there (there used to be a safari in that area), but instead, they did this. Shoulda had a V8 instead.

Then every bad coaster ever made is the parks fault because "they could have just cloned an existing good ride." Every ride should be unique we would all be unhappy if they had just made a MF clone.

I wouldn't mind a Bizarro clone closer to home.

zeus said:
Then every bad coaster ever made is the parks fault because "they could have just cloned an existing good ride." Every ride should be unique we would all be unhappy if they had just made a MF clone.

I didn't say it was a bad coaster, I haven't ridden it to know, though it doesn't look that interesting. I was saying that the park told Intamin what they wanted, which apparently was a coaster with a 300' drop to go into such a small space, and the designers did what they could, which resulted win wheels being melted.

And I don't have a problem with clones. Every ride doesn't have to be unique. I'd love an El Toro, Voyage, Bizarro New England, and Premier Spagetti Bowl at my home park.

Would they re-profile to stop gray outs or to prevent the wheels from burning off? Both? I welcome a change, the idea of a drop like that with trims makes me sad.

In the long run, I'd say they'd rather spend a bit of money now to get rid of the melting wheel issues that actually costs the park money, than they would the grey-out problem which doesn't seem to have impacted their profits.

I haven't heard of any major complaints about people not riding the ride due to the grey-outs, as far as I could tell, the ride seems to be a hit with the GP.

But if they're bleeding wheels (Cash) at this point, they probably want to fix that.

Just my .02

I don't see how reprofiling the turn could allow them to remove the trims; they still need the train slowed down for the second half of the ride and a new turn won't have that big an impact on overall speed.

They should just stick in a giant top hat for the turnaround. ;)