TR: Jungle Racer @ Holiday World & Splashin' Safari

Yesterday was Splashin' Safari's opening day but due to cold all day long we just stayed up in Holiday World to play. Today while not sunny like it was forecasted was quite a bit warmer so we headed on down to give the new for 2004 Jungle Racer a try.

I quickly changed into my swimsuit and headed up the stairs with my mat. At the top you step into the water, lay your mat down and get ready. After a "ready, set, go" I pushed off and headed on down. The speed is nice and on the second hump you get a bit of airtime. I think Holiday World is the only water park where you can get a bit of air as Ottorongo, Zinga and now Jungle Racer gives it.

The thing to do that I didn't know my first time down was to pull up on your mat when you get to the second dip because if you don't you'll end up with about a gallon of water heading right up your nose. Also if you pull up you'll hydroplane out further to the end.

By far one of the coolest things about Jungle Racer is the scoreboard. If you want to be the king of the hill and not have to argue about who beat who down they have a timer for each lane and a scoreboard that will show who came in first, second, third, fourth and fifth. The time for my second run was 6.9 seconds and I'm sure that my third run was faster but the timer was out for that run.

Jungle Racer is the perfect addition to what has become one of the best water parks on the planet. It's a blast to ride and racing your friends and family just makes it even better. Personally I want to have a competition sometime with a bunch of friends to see who the number one Jungle Racer is!

We can't forget Jungle Jets, Holiday World & Splashin' Safari's other new for 2004 addition. I didn't go into Jungle Jets to play because the water was still a little too cold for Bond but he is really chomping at the bit to go run around in it. It just looks plain fun!

We're going to go back to the park to play in a little bit but I really can't wait for a nice hot day so I can go run around Splashin' Safari.

I'll put up a large Jungle Racer and Jungle Jets update at Negative-G later this week but if you're interested I have a few pictures over here:

http://www.negative-g.com/downhill/pivot/entry.php?id=515

Have Fun!

Paul Drabek

Here's something else to try. When you start down, lift your legs off the slide and you'll get a zippier and faster ride. This thing sounds like a tripple-down slide. I think, even though I've never been there, that they need more body and speed slides; a free-fall slide (my favorite type) would be fabulous.

Oh, and that tip may not work. The one I went on was a headfirst twister at Splashtown San Antonio and that always worked.

Cool pics! Can't wait to try that out next weekend. :-D

-Tina

What kind of mats are they? I know on the old-style slides that were rough and required mats, the best thing to do was to wrap the mat around your torso like a towel. You could seriously add to your speed that way.

But that's probably banned, eh?