National Geographic World Article

My brother has a subscription to National Geographic World, and this week's issue has an article titled "The Roller Coaster Kid Rides & Rates."

While I enjoy seeing an article about coasters in a pretty general magazine, I was a little disappointed. In the article, this boy from Georgia, Sam, rates his top ten roller coasters. I don't really agree with his ratings, but he's entitled to his opinion.

But that's not what disappointed me. The ten coasters he mentions are hardly talked about, they only have one quote for each. Most of the time, the quotes aren't even that descriptive of the ride. Ex: Raven. "It's exhilirating. There are water misters along the way that cool you down on a hot day." Now, I've never been on Raven, but from what I hear, it's not the "water misters" that make it a great roller coaster.

I wish that they had made his rankings part of a larger article about coasters.

His rankings were:
1 Flying Super Saturator (Carowinds)
2 Legend (Holiday World)
3 Beast (PKI)
4 Magnum XL-200 (CP)
5 S:ROS (SFDL)
6 Raven (HW)
7 Kumba (BGT)
8 Racer (Kennywood)
9 Incredible Hulk (IOA)
10 Jack Rabbit (Kennywood)

-ED
Who also got the impression that Sam, the magazine's "expert" has not been to any parks west of Indiana. *** This post was edited by BIG ED on 6/26/2001. ***

A loooong time ago, I used to get World. They did a neat artical on a haunted house they were building at SFOG.

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Forget about it. It can't be THAT bad!

No offense to him but when you give the Super Saturator a number one place that should tell ya somethin... :)

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.:| Brandon Rodriguez |:.
http://www.coasters2k.com

The man likes to get wet! :)

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Forget about it. It can't be THAT bad!

I forget who said it, but they said it best:

"Unless the writer is passionate about coasters, any article will be pretty generic... kinda like reading a brochure, only most of the stats are wrong."

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"Jobs! We need Jobs! What kind of work is there for a dead holigram and a mechanoid with a head shaped like a novelty condom?" -Red Dwarf

Sam's coaster count can be found at
http://www.coastercount.com/html/sourboy.html

I don't know why everybody thinks he's only been east of the Mississippi? As you can see, he's been to CA, NV and others.

It's his list, and every one on the list is a very enjoyable coaster. The editors did take some serious cuts, liberties and created requirements for the comments, etc. (Notice, there are 5 wood and 5 steel).

But I don't think any 6-12 year old (the World target audience) would be unhappy riding any of the coasters on the list.

I wasn't saying that the coasters weren't fun, or that Sam is a moron or anything. In fact, he probably is a fun guy to be around, he loves coasters so much. Like I said, I was mostly disappointed in the way the article was written. I just think that they could have used his comments better and/or gotten more opinions from other enthusiasts. Of course, it all depends on how much time they had, and other circumstances like that.

(BTW, I never would have made a crack like that "west of Indiana" one if I had know there was a place to see his coaster count. Sorry Sam, if you're out there. Thanks for the link, Robert U)


*** This post was edited by BIG ED on 6/27/2001. *** *** This post was edited by BIG ED on 6/27/2001. ***

What difference does it make? Those are the coasters he likes the most. So what? Does that mean you can't have your own top ten list? Just because they are HIS top ten does not automatically make it the final say on what ten coasters are actually the best. If you look at the different posts in all the coaster communities, you are going to see that everyone has different coasters listed in their top ten. NOBODY - I don't care who you are, I don't care how big of a fanatic you are, I don't care if you are the most loyal ACE member - NOBODY has the right to declare what coasters are the best. It is ALL a matter of opinion. So BIG DEAL if he doesn't list soaring comments about some of the coasters he listed. They are great to him for his own reasons, and that is all that matters. What he likes about them may not be what someone else likes about them.

I'm not coming down on you, I just don't see the reason for this being an issue.

You know, my thought is, for a kid, that's a pretty impressive list. Heck, that's an impressive list for anybody. I've been on his 2-10 picks, and enjoyed them all - it makes me want to check out the Saturator, since we seem to have the same tastes in coasters.