Namtab 2013 at Great America

If you ride in the very back seat, you could get awesome forces of riding in the back accompanied by the visuals of riding in the front. That sounds like fun.

Went to Batman backwards media day today. We were asked to be there at 3:30 AM, so everyone showed up bleary-eyed with some form of caffeine. The ride is incredible and fairly smooth (probably because the train was taken apart and put back together with some new parts).

I was half expecting the ride to be a little too much, and thought I might ride once and say "that's enough for me!" But not the case at all! Between 4am and 1pm I rode 15-20 times. There were people that rode much more than that!

With B&M being in on this, I could see many other parks (Cedar Fair? Come on, it's ok with B&M!) turning their beemers around. Great America has another huge hit on their hands. I've never wanted to ride a B&M so many times. There seemed much more mega-enthusiasm than with last year's X-Flight.

There were some interesting but minor modifications to the train that were visible. There are spacer plates, about 1.5" thick, where the seat backs screw into the chassis; this enables the seat modules to be turned the other way. Between the 2 middle seats of every row, there is a small gutter plate, for rain to drain. The wheel covers are on forwards (with the seats on backwards, of course).

The back of the train - formerly the front row, was home to cameras and their wires and equipment, so nobody rode there today. The next row was great, with a slight rattle (still much smoother than last year). My favorite row was the front of the train - formerly the back row; the first one to leave the station. As the train exits both vertical loops you get that wonderful tickle in the tummy. It immediately reminded me of how the Anton shuttle loops feel going backwards through the loop; but here, you get 2 of those, separated by the inline twist (which is also a blast).

They wanted us on the "ribbon cutting ceremony" train. We waited in the station, could hear VERY LOUD explosions of the confetti canons, and the train left the station. We stopped right at the top of the lift. That was a first for me, as I've never experienced a shutdown on Batman. A few minutes later, the lift started and we were off!

Apparently, they fog they were using in the tunnel (the brake run approach to the station) became so thick (they wanted it to look really good for the ceremony) had shut down the ride (sensors). But it looked cool while it lasted!

The 2nd trains chassis isn't on the ride yet, but the rest of the parts (seat modules, wheel covers) were on the floor in the transfer area.

Was thinking how cool it was that many friends were enjoying the Gatekeeper media day at the same time. Look forward to those reports!

I'd do a backwards Gatekeper, just saying :)

I really would like to see the company do this at GrAdv, so I could volley with an op about the front and back at the same damn time.

^^ Winning.

A "backwards Gatekeeper" sounds kind of naughty.

Mike Gallagher said:

I really would like to see the company do this at GrAdv, so I could volley with an op about the front and back at the same damn time.

Just a question of when. I'm sure all 7 Batman clones currently operating in the Six Flags chain will run backwards at some point in the next 3 seasons.

There is a rumor about Fiesta Texas being the next to have the backwards Batman (or Goliath, in their case). I'd be interested in seeing what other parts, other than the ones I could see, that had to be manufactured to do this. Other than the cost of parts, I'm sure B&M wants to keep a close eye on how stuff works over a few weeks; the wear and tear, and stress.

This sounds strange, but I think this backwards version is less stressful on the body in some ways. You're back isn't being pushed into the back rest during forward accelerations, so you don't have as much contact with all that vibration. It feels less intense; but I know the layout well, so that works in my favor (especially since I know to always put my head to the side during the 2 "flat spins.")

Wow, looks like Viper will be running backwards starting July 8th. I don't think a ride with that much airtime has ever been backwards. Batman stops backwards operation the day before, and American Eagle will be backwards in the fall.

Kudos to them; they know what gets people out to the park. There was rumor of X-Flight having some seats turned backwards, guess that's not happening this year.

Edit - that video isn't very good; it makes the ride look much rougher than it really is. As of last week anyway :)

So, you can run an intense B&M inverted rollercoaster backwards, but Cedar Fair took the Racer and un-did the very popular backwardsity of it. Now Viper is going backwards.

Please turn Racer back the other way!

enfynet said: Please turn Racer back the other way!

Have at it. Don't forget to use nice words :)

Oh believe me, I leave plenty of comments, compliments, and other suggestions with parks quite often.