TR: Martins Fantasy Island 9-1-02

TR: Martins Fantasy Island 9-1-02, and Youngstown Field Days 9-02-02.

“Silver Comet Rush”

Labor Day weekend was excellent for me at MFI, it was the weekend of my first coaster enthusiast event with the WNYCC, first off let me say I am not yet a member of this wonderful organization but I will be for next season so I can enjoy even more events with them. I was attending this event because I wanted to find out what it was like to hang out with coaster enthusiasts.

So before I went off to meet up with the club I took 4 rides on the Silver Comet which was running awesome as usual. The train on the Silver Comet could really use some maintenance though because some of the seats are roped off and the seatbelts are getting worn out, I suspect they are waiting till the off season to do maintenance on the train. Also I think in general this park is showing signs of being up and running all season, maintenance is needed everywhere, parts of other various rides are roped off and some rides are not running to their full capacity as well.

I am actually starting to like the front seat on the Silver Comet although the lap bar was sticking and the op had to help me open it. The front seat gives some nice air more toward the beginning of the ride and it’s also really cool because you get held over the drop on the lift hill for about a second and you get to look straight down at the drop and that is a really cool feeling. So instead of taking my usual rides in the back seat I decided to give the front another chance (it was very painful the last time I tried it) and I liked the front this time. The laterals on this coaster are pretty intense, especially on the last turn before the station. I took 1 ride in the front, one in the back and a couple in the middle seats this time. The middle isn’t too bad either, every seat gives a nice ride; this is just a great all around CCI coaster.

I know none of you would ever do this but please if you are going to chew gum while at the park spit it out before riding the coaster, and don’t stick the gum to the seat of the coaster. I ended up sitting in a mess of sticky chewing gum on one of the seats on the Silver Comet, it is not pleasant to get this stuff all over good jeans, I was able to get the gum off with goo gone but after putting the goo gone on my jeans I now have a discolored spot on my jeans where I put the goo gone, so now I have a nice mess on my hands with these jeans.

Now to the fun stuff, after taking 4 rides on the Silver Comet I went to search for the WNYCC. I had a very interesting walk through a part of the park I have never been through, and I was glad I took this way to get to the Blacksmith’s Shelter which was where the meeting of the club was being held. This park is by no means big but I have never been in the area behind the slide where all the shelters are.

The meeting of the club was just about finishing up when I got there so I figured it was good timing since my email correspondent Art Chudninski said that I probably didn’t want to sit through the whole meeting. (Art, forgive me if I botched the spelling of your name). I used this time to figure out who everyone in the club was; this wasn’t hard at all because everyone was wearing name tags. This coaster club was an eclectic mix of people but I suspect every coaster club is like that from what I’ve been hearing. This was my first time even coming in contact with real coaster enthusiasts in person, I have talked to plenty online but this did not prepare me for what I was about to experience. These people talk about coasters constantly, nonstop, this is probably normal for everyone else here on this group but this is the first time I have heard anything like it in my life. They even talk about different coasters while they are on a coaster, and sometimes they will talk about the same coaster they are riding. I was surprised that I knew something about everything they were talking about, or at least I heard of what they were talking about. The people I went with after the club meeting’s names were Rose and Pamela, and they were great fun to ride coasters with.

I usually have to ride coasters by myself, my mom does not like coasters and won’t touch one (I’m working on this), and none of my friends like them either, and I don’t want to force my friends into liking something they don’t because then they will not be my friends anymore. Having actual people to ride coasters with was an entirely new experience for me; it is much better riding coasters with people, especially people who actually enjoy riding coasters! I really didn’t care who at the club I ended up riding coasters with, I just wanted to ride with someone because I had never done so before! I had an extremely good time at the club with everyone. I did not participate in the nighttime ERT on the Silver Comet because I am not a member of the club yet, but the nighttime ERT must be wild because I took one night ride on the Comet in the last seat and it was wild, the coaster really fly’s at night!

I am assuming that next weekend is MFI’s last operating weekend for the 2002 season because there is no Halloween event this year.

Youngstown Field Days Carnival

Ok this is your typical small carnival on a grassy lot but the only reason I am mentioning it here is because when I went to look for info on Hammerl shows (that’s the people who bring the amusements to this carnival) there was like none on the net, and also because there were some rides that you don’t find too often now days at this carnival.

Rides that were there: Cobra, Spider/Octopus, Paratrooper, Musical Chairs, Hampton Combo x2, kiddie wave runners, Tornado, Loop-O-Plane, Kiddie dragons, kiddie swing cars (looked home-built), and a carousel.

I would like to say that my impression of Hammerl shows was very nice for a small carnival. The paint on the carousel was fresh and clean looking and the same goes for all the other rides. I do not mean to knock down Amusements of Buffalo but when I went to one of their smaller shows almost every ride had tons of paint flaking off of it (especially the carousel), and seemed rickety and made noises that the rides probably shouldn’t have. The appearance and feel of this small carnival was totally different. This carnival had a lot of older rides, the cobra, loop o plane and the paratrooper I have not seen in ages at any carnival over here, the loop o plane was in especially nice condition with fresh paint and new looking seat padding and new seatbelts. I rode the Cobra, (yay I finally got to ride a cobra after wanting to for years) and the spider/octopus since I also love these kinds of rides. This one was probably different than the other spider I rode, leading me to believe it was an Octopus by Eyerly, this one didn’t spin as much as the other one, and I thought the other one I rode at a different carnival was a better spider than this one. The Cobra was an awesome ride and it went very fast.

This pretty much wraps up this season of amusement parks for me, I had an awesome time at each and every one of them, and I enjoyed being at them all, I guess I accomplished a lot this season, I was only going to go to one park once and I ended up going to 5 parks, although I went to MFI 3 times and I am counting the Erie County fair as a park, and my other one was SFDL. Next season with me joining the WNYCC I am hoping to get to some different parks, I am looking forward to Waldameer park (Erie,PA), I already promised aunt rose I was going to go there and meet up with her at least once, and I am also looking forward to Seabreeze park(Rochester, NY) because they have a lot of good rides that I like and haven’t been on in a very long time. Those parks will be 2 of my goals for next season.

*** This post was edited by SaraAB on 9/3/2002. ***