Mitch Hawker's 2004 Wood Coaster Poll is underway!

New in my Top 10 list this year...

3. Phoenix
5. The Boss
8. Lightning Racer(s)

"Worst" new wood was Thunderhawk at DP so, all in all, a VERY good year!

new wood

tsunaimi

legend

twisted sisters

the twister is running better than ever. in fact it has gotten better each year since it's been open. i am starting to spend more time at the twister than the phoenix.

I must add heaping praise to one newbie that I have yet to see mentioned....

Avalanche.

Easily in my top 5 after the first lap (I took 30 that night).

Later,
EV

Holy Cr@p, look who posted after being AWOL! Eric...it's been way too long, we miss you here ;)

"Ghey" is Joe Campanella's and "The Ghey" is Brian's, which Joe in turn stole and overuses as a comeback with "You're the ghey". Silly.

+Danny, steals too, don't tell anyone ;)

One coaster that moved from the bottom of my list last year to the midway point this year was Psyclone at SFMM. I remember it being painful, slow, and boring. The last two times I've ridden though (4th of July, beginning of October), the ride gave a good ride. I rode in the front car, and the airtime was extreme at the first fan turn and then the next hill.

It's still painful, but the fun we had on it pushed it up to the middle. Last year I said it would never move past 2nd to last.

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dawnmarie313 said:
My top ten is in a shambles with all the new wood I enjoyed this year!

APA style)

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You said it, Not Me :)

LOL

Chuck

Hey Eric, welcome back!

For what it's worth, Frank (and others) agree about Avalanche, and there will likely be LOADS of support for that one next.....meh, June-ish...;)

Moosh 'n' gator,

thanks for the support. It's been one crazy summer (no thanks to those evil cute 'n' fuzzy bunnies) with family stuff.

I was still lurking quite a bit during those months. I just didn't really have a whole lot to say....

Later,
EV

BTW - y'all have to stop out to visit in Wis-cow-sin when you're up here.

Blue Streak CLP, my favorite.
New Wood: Thunderhead...
Disapointment: Meah Streak. the first hill had trims on the descent!?!?!?

Well I dont seem to have experienced as many coasters as most of you on here but heres my thoughts,

1st The Beast.great coaster although dont care for the new seatbelts much

2nd The Villan it surprised the hell outta me with such a small layout but it seemed relentless from begining to the end

3ed Thunderbolt Kennywood is my hometown park but i still love the drop outta the station and the last drop.Very unpredictable

4th Grizzly (PKD) first time I rode it was at night so it took me by surprise great layout love the drop in the tunnel

5th SOB I almost feel ashamed to admit it but I love the pain it delivers in the helixes,dont know why but its just an adreneline rush to ride it.

Biggest disapointment this year has to be hurler. Looked really good while waiting in line but it was lame.

Unlike last year, I didn't ride a lot of new wooden coasters that were notable. The one exception was my new number one, beating out my number one steel as well, Avalanche.

Other notable movements: Ghostrider dropped after some less than stellar rides during Haunt this year. Son of Beast took over my bottom spot after having a pothole on the ride dislocate my shoulder (luckily it popped back into place on the next pothole). Mean Streak moved up several spots after some pretty good rides over Labor Day weekend. The other fairly notable new coaster I rode debuted at number six and that was the Dania Beach Hurricane. It's not an outstanding coaster in any one thing, it just does everything right.

As for new Woodies for me this year, Beast(finally) was good, but Beast @ nite was great!

SOB was okay(actually somehow ended up riding it more than Poppa, thanks to the hot blond chick that ploped down beside me for the last 2 rides of the nite...during fireworks).

I got one of the Twins, it was Okay...

I got Thunder Run, one of my new top coasters period.

Mean Streak, though not a bit rough, was just like "um, okay...".

Blue Streak was fun:).

Villian was great, Dipper was a suprise, and RWB was that bad. Atleast until the re-tracked parts.

I did, however, get to ride my favorite, and riding it 4 times at nite solidifed it as my favorite after about an 8 year hiatus...Swamp Fox.

The most surprising for me was Roller Coaster at the Western Washington State Fair (although I still cannot pronounce Puyallup).

It doesn't look like much but it had great laterals and a totally unexpected, *wicked* pop of ejector air on the second turnaround from the front seat. It was amazingly smooth too, considering it is only open 2 weeks of the year (a real shame). A really fun, old-school ride.

This year didn’t garner many new woodies for me. In fact, it was only 6. =( Of those however, I did add another woodie to my #1 grouping category on the poll, “Aska”, and another which landed right next to Psyclone and Grizzly in the #5 category, “White Canyon.” The only new U.S. woodie to me this year was Thunderhead, and I know I’m in the minority of people who didn’t think it was the best thing since sliced bread. I didn’t love it, or hate it, I thought it was just “good”, and it landed in my #3 grouping category.

I’ll finally get to add Dania Beach Hurricane in a few weeks, though it will happen after the poll has closed, and I hope that’s still as good as people report it to be. That will end up being my #700 coaster! Woo-hoo! =)

We're taking a trip to the Dells next year and to SDC so I can finally get on Osark Wildcat too. I certainly urge everyone to vote in Mitch's poll. I feel it's the best poll out there and certainly the only one I bother with every year.

If you one of those who are intimidated by it and think it's too complicated, I have put up an 'idiots guide' on my site to help people find an eaiser way to fill it out: http://www.themeparkreview.com/mitch.htm

--Robb *** Edited 11/7/2004 8:39:20 AM UTC by Robb Alvey***

Hard to garner any new woodies when you have over 700 there, Robb;).

Mitch's is the only Poll I've ever done, Once you read the instructions, its pretty understandable. Glad someone is running an actual informative poll instead of a U.S. popularity contest;).

I hardly think they're all "US popularity contests", Clint...though undoubtedly SOME turn out that way...

In my recollection, the ACE ECO trip ended up pushing a certain steel coaster to the #1 spot...I can't say how deserving it was myself, not having ridden it. And as hard as it is to seperate out steel, wood is THAT much harder....

People have *preferences*, and there's always a tendency to favor those most recently ridden (which explains to some degree MY ballot, LOL)...;)

Bottom line, there is no such thing as a *definitive* ranking systrem, at least not until everyone agrees that MY personal preferences are the standards by which everyone else should judge...;)

All that being said, Mitch DOES take the time and effort to at least TRY and minimize those personal biases....and he ends up with what is, and should be IMO, the best system for sorting out all of the BS to get down to the "best" coasters...

And in conclusion...TrEmOrS for president! :)

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TeknoScorpion said:
Hard to garner any new woodies when you have over 700 there, Robb.

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Hehe, true, and it's not 700...yet! ;) However, there are still quite a few in the U.S. we haven't managed to hit yet! Rye Playland, Joyland, Dania Beach, Myrtle Beach, Camden, Osark Wildcat, Timberhawk, Zingo, etc.

We were hoping to get a few of those this year, but as it turned out Thunderhead end up being the ONLY new U.S. woodie for me.

Next year we'll make it to a few 'new for me' U.S. parks (and Europe ones too!) ;)

--Robb
*** Edited 11/7/2004 9:04:02 PM UTC by Robb Alvey***