Son of Beast closes

To play devil's advocate here:

The value of the Goodwill could have been adjusted to compensate for any perceived ill will the ride would cause. I've seen some pretty interesting accounting manuvers of this manner while supporting accounting systems with a former employer.

Yeah, that's a fair consideration. But then that takes us back to the idea that CF could forecast the near-future demise of the ride. I'm not sure that's likely.

You'd also have to factor in the proportionality of SOB to all of the other assets in the acquisition to determine how likely it is CF would have made an adjustment on that one asset.

In other words, before CF would make a goodwill adjustment they would need to be able to demonstrate that SOB was going to have a negative impact on future revenue. How could they predict that?

Not to mention that analysts seemed to think that they paid too much for the chain in the first place. SOB is only a fractional part of that bad deal. The only thing that we can really guess on is that perhaps there was a bidding war with someone else, though I can't imagine who else was in any position or desire to buy the parks then.

Wait a minute...you mean Kinzel doesn't actually have a crystal ball in his office? I guess that throws my theory completely out the window. :)

Carrie and Jeff, your points are valid for sure. I was just wondering if CF was taking their experience with a large woody in MS and considering it when purchasing KI. It's conceivable, but unlikely.

Regardless, I am willing to bet that SOB doesn't stay SBNO as long as Flashback did. I am guessing they either make some sort of announcement about a 'big change' to the ride, or they quietly start to dismantle it.

I hear you. And you're right; no matter what, something has to be done and it's going to cost CF to do it.

Exactly. So you either pony up the dough to tear it down and rip out the cancer that is SOB, or keep spending infinite dollars on a flop.

Hmm.

I don't think those are quite the only choices.

Letting it sit there and rot is always an option. In fact, given the presumed lack of a plan for the immediate retirement or replacement of the ride, that is not an entirely unlikely course of inaction.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Dave - Something I've been wondering with regard to the cost of tearing it down versus altering the layout...

Would potential future lawsuits factor into that cost analysis? That is, if they kept the lift hill, yet changed the rest of the course, and someone was injured in the future, could the ride's history become a liability?

That is a legal question. I can only give you reasonable and logical answers;as you are no doubt aware, legal answers tend to defy both logic and reason.

I would expect that the ride's history would come into play only if the injuries were related to a part of the ride which was historically a problem. The other possibility is that the act of altering the ride could be considered an admission that the existing ride as it now stands has problems, which could have an impact on currently pending cases.

I believe that a substantial remodel would make the ride no longer recognizable as "Son of Beast".

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Why would you even want to try and salvage the lift?

It's been proven that a wooden coaster over 155 feet is not gonna work.

Really? I beg to differ. Go look at Voyage or El Toro, both above 155 ft.

Regardless, I think the real thing to think about is a question that revolves around the terrain the ride is situated on. As Dave said earlier, the terrain is otherwise unusable and rather hard to place cranes and other such equipment in. Tearing the ride down completely to then bring back that equipment later to erect a new ride would presumably be very (perhaps prohibitively) expensive. Rather than go through the hassle to bring back in the equipment a second time, would it be better to use what you can from the current ride as a part of the new ride, and tear down/rebuild at the same time? I would say it would be better, both logically and financially.

In the meantime, it will be SBNO.

The lift of voyage is above that, but the drop is only 154.

El toro is a prefab track coaster, almost to the point that you can't even count it as a wooden coaster.

crazy horse said:
Why would you even want to try and salvage the lift?

It's been proven that a wooden coaster over 155 feet is not gonna work.

I was simply referring to Dave's previous comments regarding not tearing down the entire ride - he has implied that the lift and first drop may be, in his opinion, salvageable to some degree.

maXairMike said:
As Dave said earlier, theterrain is otherwise unusable and rather hard to place cranes and othersuch equipment in. Tearing the ride down completely to then bring backthat equipment later to erect a new ride would presumably be very(perhaps prohibitively) expensive. Rather than go through the hassle tobring back in the equipment a second time, would it be better to usewhat you can from the current ride as a part of the new ride, and teardown/rebuild at the same time? I would say it would be better, bothlogically and financially.

Couldn't the existing SOB structure be considered yet another obstacle that could increase the cost? They'd not only have the terrain to work around, but also a 16-story structure.

I would also venture that almost all of the roughness on a wooden coaster comes from the nature of the track and wheel assemblies. There is generally quite a bit of play both vertically and laterally for the guide and up-stop wheels. I'm not sure how El-Toro addresses this issue, but from pictures it looks as if the track is built in a manner similar to a traditional wooden coaster (obviously prefabbed, meaning less hand work errors), which makes me think that the majority of improvement is with the train, specifically the wheel assemblies.

Dave, I mentioned in the Mean Streak thread over on PointBuzz that Blue Streak seemed better (less shuffling) through the turn around. And since it can't be going faster through the turn, they had to adjust either the track or wheel assemblies. I guessed there that they adjusted the track, specifically lessening the gap between the guide wheels and the track by pushing the track more towards the inside. Would it be possible to better the ride of a wooden coaster by tightening up the wheel assemblies to the track, essentially leaving next to no "play" similar to how steel coaster wheel assemblies (Vekoma and Arrow aside) are? It would certainly be easier than completely retracking an entire ride, at least I would think.

Dj: I guess it could be considered an obstacle, but again, I'm of the same feeling as Dave in that the only major section that I could really see saving is the lift, first, and maybe second hill. The ride after the MCBR isn't all too bad, but also not quite worth saving if you're redoing the ride, in my opinion. So that really leaves you with the freedom to tear down the ride structure either to the heights you need it or completely where you need to or aren't keeping anything. The lift and first drop aren't much of an obstacle unless deciding to go through the structure, as they make a nice corner boundary.

crazy horse said:

It's been proven that a wooden coaster over 155 feet is not gonna work.

Really? It's been proven?

I'm surprised at how many people don't realize that Bizarro (both) and X2 are just repaint/rethemes of existing rides. I think changing the name and altering the layout of SoB would give it a clean slate in the eyes of the public.

I don't know. A 200 foot tall wooden monster is kinda hard to forget. I doubht they would repaint it, and the part they would likely keep is basically the only part that is visible.

By the way, here are some close up shots of el toro. If you look at the track design and footers, you can see why it would be expensive.

http://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Thread/56303.aspx

Bizzaro and x2 are steel coasters. You are comparing apples to oranges.

No, it's more like he's comparing paper to plastic.