Steel Coaster Poll Results

I think the mine train at Silver Dollar City has cars that face backwards on each trains? Beside that... Disneyland Paris ran their Indiana Jones coaster backward for a few years, but it was a flop.

^^ Yeah, go figure.

^^^ I'm with you Bill, because I like new experiences, even if I know I'm going to be disappointed. I was really upset that I never got a chance to ride Flashback @ SFMM a few years back (it was closed, of course) because I wanted to give it a shot despite knowing it was a terrible ride. Riding those awful coasters is even more satisfying once they're gone, because at least I know I had my chance and took advantage of it.

I think this poll is interesting to me because while people are saying one thing "It's great that they're putting in more family coasters," the results don't bear that.[ I didn't vote because I found it too time consuming (there's always next year)].

So perhaps we're happy to see some balance at our local parks, but at the end of the day the majority of us want something really fast and not so family-oriented. The results mostly reflect my taste as well.

The main example of this I can see is the results for the Italian Job coasters. I think they're fun, while not being super fast (I've ridden both KI and KD's), but they're rated quite low.

Someone on the first page challenged Magnum's ranking. I think most people simply don't want to ride or even respect some of Arrow's creations anymore not because they don't have some excitement, it's because some of the transitions can be very jarring.

Take a look for example at the pretzel loop turnaround on Magnum. Imagine the same turn designed by Morgan example. It would be so much smoother and not so "square." The bunnyhills wouldn't kill you either if you didn't know to tighten your seatbelt as tight as possible.

Listen, I understand your complaint about rides that are too smooth. Back in 91' my friend and I said the same thing about GASM at Gadv. believe it or not. We preferred the feeling we got from Rolling Thunder. Now, I much prefer the in-between --something that doesn't beat the crap out of you, but still feels "alive."

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Intamin Fan said:
I think this poll is interesting to me because while people are saying one thing "It's great that they're putting in more family coasters," the results don't bear that.

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The results reflect what we feel are the best coasters, not necessarily what we feel are good investments by the parks. I'll always be happy to see a park build a quality coaster many family members can ride but that doesn't mean I'll put it in my top 10 or 100 based on that alone.

I'd like to second the positive comments on Eagle Fortress. It really is that good.

(And for the record, I didn't vote this year. If I had, there'd be seven votes for it to back up the third place).

^^ I agree that the results don't do much to validate what parks might be doing with new family-friendly steel coasters. If anything, the appearance of rides like Griffon near the top of the list proves that coaster enthusiasts still go for thrilling coasters. Of course, I can't really say for sure what goes on inside my head when I vote. I want to say I look at the coaster experiences and nothing more but I won't guarantee a lot of other little things factor into the decision-making process, like how much I like/dislike a park or how I think a particular ride may add to the overall park experience. It's tough to make emotional decisions with blinders on.

I think that's okay, though. These are inherently subjective judgments. Who's to say that your "metrics" for measuring preferences are right or wrong? They are simply yours.

Mitch tries to get at some of that by sorting ballots by preferred forces. Perhaps he should add secondary ballots that capture some of these secondary characteristics?

^^Just thinking aloud....let's say I had ridden Wicked, but it was at PKD not at Lagoon (BTW, nice article, Richard). Being at the park it's at, Wicked offers something that "rounds out and complements" the existing ride line-up. It is hella-fun, but that's almost off-topic. If the ride were suddenly plopped down at PKD, it's launch would be *just another launched coaster* at that park. Plus, given propulsion and the tower element, it would seem *kinda replicative* of H:XLC in the same way as I hold that Fahrenheit is simply TOO close to the StormRunner experience. Therefore, even though *I* myself really DO try to judge/rank each RIDE out of the context of "external forces", I can't deny that somehow thre are factors that STILL will creep in....

Which brings me back to where I was...agreeing with Brian. We all have different methods (some of us VASTLY different, LOL)....that's the beauty of Mitch's algorithm. We *can* all have our own idiosyncracies and still, at the end of the day, come to some sort of ranking system that can stand up to scrutiny, and to MANY varied systems and methods....

Someday I'd like to beat the daylights out of those ballots with strong statistical analysis software. One of the things I'd like to prove is that some of those "higher ranked rides" do VERY well with the GP in terms of merchandising and driving the gate. For instance, I'd be willing to bet that if you pulled B:TDK (or whatever it's called now) out of SFNE....the gate would be relatively unaffected. Pull out Supes, the park would suffer horribly. Just makes me laugh how enthusiasts don't give the GP enough credit. They're really quite "savvy" (except when it comes to SLCs, hehehe). ;)

I agree with Brian too. There's no way to eliminate all the intangibles that ultimately go into the decision to vote for anything- whether it be a coaster or a Presidential candidate- and that is perfectly fine.

I get what you're saying, Bill. The park itself plays a big part in the opinion of a coaster, particularly when your opinion of the coaster depends upon your opinion of everything else in the park. Raptor and Gemini are my two favorite steel coasters at Cedar Point, but would I feel the same about them if they were at either of the Busch parks?

On top of that there're things like weather, line length, who I'm with, what I had for breakfast, how my job is going, etc. etc.

Hooray for post-modernism!

Just throwing more fuel on the fire...