reprofiled hill on racer?

i heard a few years ago that the race had a reprofiled hill but i cant find where it is and i didnt notice it being any different

If you are talking about PKI

Your talking about the bunny hop hill before it went in the tunnel at the end of the ride. They where taken out when Flight OF Fear opened.

yes i ment pki, sorry, but i heard three years ago

do you know why they took it out?

According to maintenance they received heavier trains which required longer braking distance. This makes sense as opposed to the initial guess that they needed a path to the LIM, which can be seen in early pics of the park.
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Brad Sherman
The Headless Horseman awaits thee in 2003!
Arrowed!

What did they do that year that made the original trains so much heavier? Racer is still running its 30-year-old trains. Plus, the ride has squeeze brakes which are far more efficient than skid brakes, and the brake run is plenty long for skid brakes. Sorry, Brad, but that answer just about buried the needle on my crap detector. It sounds more like an excuse than a reason.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Who notes that they also removed the last dip from the Beastie...

When I worked at PKI, I asked a member of the wooden coaster maintenance staff. He has been working for the park since Beast was built.

According to him, It was removed because trains were "overshooting" the final break run and "setting up" the blocking system. That coupled with the desire in 1995 to widen the path that already existed unter the main drop led to one of the silliest things PKI has done in it's 32 seasons. (The path was never widened, the existing one was used as-is to access the FOF plaza.)

The trains that run on Racer are the originals and were not replaced. They HAVE been re-conditioned over the years. They originally operated with skid brakes which were manually controlled by ride operators in station. They also originally ran with a flip down, two-seat "buzz" bar restraint, rather than the individual stapling orange lap bars of today.

The change in those trains did little to the weight of the trains as far as I know.

Here is a link to pictures taken by a good friend of mine in 1981 of Racer. You'll need to use the link below, click on Racer then scroll down and you will find a picture of the final hop and break-run as it was back then. Remember that in 1981, KI had not yet reversed the trains on the "Midway" or "South" side of Racer to run backwards. That happened in 1982 as a knee-jerk reaction to help appease guests terribly upset by "The Bat's" inability to cooperate and run regularly. In the picture you can clearly see the final hop that has now been removed, as well as a non-enclosed break run. The break run was enclosed when the ride's ending was altered.

http://home.fuse.net/brock/KI1981.html

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Shaggy

Proud A-lister!
*** This post was edited by Shaggy 4/26/2003 8:22:22 PM ***

...And my suspicion is that the loss of that last dip resulted in more energy for the train as it approached the brake run, which necessitated the installation of the brake on the turnaround to compensate.

My understanding is that adding brake fins adds a lot of weight to a train, the ratcheting lap bars are also somewhat heavier than the double-bars, and the seat dividers also add some weight to the trains. So I don't doubt that the Racer trains are significantly heavier now than they were in 1972. But all of that had been done to the trains long before the last dip was removed.

(Nice old photos on that page, Shaggy!)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Sometimes I wish I weren't so young, so that I would have been able to experience Racer, and other rides that have been modified over the years. Oh well, that just means I have more endurance to ride the rides longer now anyway!

RideMan: Why would brakes need to be put on the turnaround in order to compensate for a greater train weight? Couldn't the power of the final brakes be modified, instead of installing new ones?
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Intelligence is a God given gift: Know how to use it.

No, no, not to compensate for the heavier train...to compensate for the missing hill! When the train goes over a hill, it loses a certain amount of energy, and if the hill gets replaced with straight track, that loss goes away, so the train will hit the final brakes harder. Yes, you could increase the braking force of the final brakes, but how much do you want to do that before you're busting teeth against the grab handles? I suppose they could just add the extra padding to the front of the train as they did on The Beast..... :)

Anyway, if that is the reasoning (and I have no idea whether it is or not) then it would make sense to put the brake on the turnaround because that's the one place where you can put a brake high up on the ride. A brake on the top of the hill doesn't have to brake quite as hard to have the same effect as a brake placed at the bottom of a hill. And if you can hit the brake as the train is going up a hill, you can make it somewhat less noticeable, since the train should be slowing down at that point anyway. The magnetic trims on the Mad Mouse at Idlewild do this very nicely, as do the final trims on Phantom's Revenge. It's also what Kings Island tried to do on the second hill of The Beast, but that's another story.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Well I'm just reporting what I was told......But that still doesn't make sense because the calipers will grab stronger and more consistent than say, a manual skid right? So you'd normally expect the fin brake system to slow the train in a shorter distance, thus the train wouldn't need a longer approach. But removing the dip gave the trains a bit more speed when they entered the shed, and that, combined with the added items you mentioned, would appear to complicate things further. And I never noticed the turnaround brake until after the dips were gone, so that has to be why they installed them....they noticed the increased speed, and to prevent any overshooting, added the turnaround trim. Still, I don't understand why the dips were flattened, on Racer or Beastie. :) Perhaps they took a good, long (emphasis on long) look at papa Beast's brake run, and decided to do the same to the other woodies keeping in scale! Speaking of PKI, I should hit the sack so I don't miss my ride in 5 hours!
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Brad Sherman
The Headless Horseman awaits thee in 2003!
Arrowed!

Remember as Dave said, the brakes have to not only be able to stop the train, they have to be able to stop the train withoug injuring the riders.

To expand on trims. The worst place to place a trim is on the start of a drop such as the awful trim on Mean Streak. The best place to put one is at the bottom of a hill such as the adjustable trims on Nitro. Trims at the start of a drop have to be on for a long time and reduce speed considerably to get the desired effect. A trim at the start of a drop is really reducing potential energy, and has to act a long time to in essence lower the train to the new release point. A trim at the bottom of a hill is reducing kinetic enerby and has to act only briefly with a small reduction in speed to get the same effect, since what we are removing kinetic energy and E=mv^2.

As Dave mentioned trims can also be relatively unobtrusive at the end of a rise, where they are again reducing kinetic energy.

The disadvantge to trims at the bottom of a hill is they do wear faster and require more maintenance.

They can be realatively unobtrusive on a rise when not done Ala Raging Bull.

That has to be the worst installment of trim brakes I have ever noticed. Apollo is the same way.

B and M seemed to wise up with Nitro and trimmed the vallies, but then again Silver Star also has them on the up side of the hills.

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Ah what the hell.....Magnum What?

S:ROS blew me away

It seems that on Racer, the brakes aren't engaged right at the beginning of the shed. If they were, I would think that the brakes on the turnaround could be removed. The train would be moving faster, but if the brakes engaged sooner a gradual stop could still be possible. For those of you who are familiar with Racer and it's braking system, would this be possible?
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Intelligence is a God given gift: Know how to use it.