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Anybody remember Millennium Force and the constant anti-rollback and wheel issues the first year? Yeah, I barely remember either. The ride is currently going through similar growing pains. Though, we can thank MF's wheel issues with the lack thereof on Dragster now. Funny how it all works out!

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

So then just let it pass. You've made your statement and simple minds tend to forget everything right? Time will tell and CP wouldn't build a coaster that would be a day-to-day pain to keep running. A flying tire was a calculated risk. If you listen to your ride ops people, "Cedar Point is not responsible for any belongings falling from the ride" :-)

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Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers

I think CP will eventually get everything right and it is unreasonable to expect everything to run perfectly right off the top. Look at the amount of recalls in the auto industry. That's after years of development and we still have recalls for things that cause engine fires, ect..

The tire issue is something totally different. This could have turned out to be catastrophic and I'm very surprised that it even happened. We're not talking about a rollback or a structure problem that could be noticed in time to fix. This would have been immediately catastrophic because no one can survive a huge tire landing on them.

I am, of course, assuming that the possibility is there for someone to get hit if the tire flew off the car. It would have to be possible because rubber can bounce very high and be very unpredictable in the direction it takes. There are people relatively close to any path the tire could land, right?

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CPLady said:

And to prove Rob isn't all that upset, here is one picture.

Rob may not be all that upset, but after looking at that ugly guy on the right, now *I* am upset...;) Just teasing....by now you should be accustomed to it...

....but if another cable suffers the same fate, don't be too surprised if Intamin starts looking elsewhere for their cable supplier...;)

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Put it this way. I've been to Cedar Point before. I'm going to be there again in August, but after that who knows when I'll be there again. I live over 4,000 miles away after all.

Therefore, I would be disappointed if I didn't get to ride Dragster. Mainly because I have no idea when I'll be back.

OTOH, I agree with the other poster in this thread who mentioned there are many other coasters to choose from. I intend to make the most of them.

R

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http://www.bannister.org/coasters/

Jeff: I remember the wheel problems the first year of MF quite well. I was very impressed by the efforts put forth by both CP and Intamin. I was also amazed at how fast CP could change wheels.

We can talk about bathtub curves all we want at this point, but it's obvious that If anyone knows what kind of failure this was they aren't talking. It could have been infant mortality due to manufacturing defect on installation error, or it could be a systematic problem due to underdesign that will be serious. I can only say that I have no idea which it was.

Either way, it was fixed and it ran today.

On media day, what impressed the hell out of me was watching them replace a couple of air hoses to brake fins at the standby position, opposite the entrance ramp and in front of the electrical building. I kid you not... a pair of guys replaced two hoses in under a minute.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM