Unofficial Thunder Road poll- Time for a paint job

The year was 1988. As I was driving into the employ entrance at Carowinds I noticed the first speed hill on the return leg of what would later be the backwards side of Thunder Road had beeen stripped of paint ont the suppor structure. Within a week it was announced the the support structure(but not the track and hand rails) would be stripped during the off season to blend in with the rides natural surroundings(translation: they were to cheap to re-paint it). The natural surroundings of the ride at the time were a seldom used section of the parking lot and a junk/bone yard. Well with the support structure and not the track stripped it did look like junk in my opinion.

Now that over a decade has passed and Hurler has been built with a natural wood color scheme I would like to know how many fellow buzzers feel it's time to paint this ride. Also feel free to list any other woodies with a natural wood color scheme you feel wood benifit from some paint.

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JOHN
RCT INSOMNIACS
KIMBERLY LAKE INC.

Far from its glory days when it was bright white, the coaster trains with the original 50's cars theming of the sherrif and the bootlegger, and the coaster raced. Sad.

I myself think that the best color for any wooden is its natural color. I'm not into the painted look, especially when it is not kept up. However I will say some woodies do look great with their paint jobs. (White Cyclone)

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Formally Suspended Andrew, proud member since May 2001.

I have to agree with Clark. TR looks pretty classy with the wood and painted hanrails. I say leave it as is.

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Ah what the hell.....Magnum What?

S:ROS blew me away

Don't see any problem with it. I'd rather see a freshly painted Hyper somewhere on the property.

Didn't take long for someone to bring up a hyper ;)

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Formally Suspended Andrew, proud member since May 2001.

How about a 250 foot 7000 foot long Intamin plug and play?

That seems to be the answer to everything.

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Ah what the hell.....Magnum What?

S:ROS blew me away

Thunder Road needs to be repainted back to its Red, white and blue paint shemce.
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Support the Coaster Preservation Club at www.coasterpreservation.tk

"I see a coaster and I want it painted bla-a-a-a-ck ..."

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"It's not a Too-mah!" - Arnold after riding Batman the Ride

What Natural Surroundings? There's a Parking Lot on one side and Brightly Colored Speed Slides on the Other. Besides, Vortex, Carolina Cyclone, Top Gun and Scooby Doo are all Painted Un-Natural Colors.......

The Racer and Rebel Yell are STILL both painted White, and there closer to woods than TR.......

So, there just Cutting Corners....

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"Grit Your Teeth, Bare The Load, Enjoy your ride, on Thunder Road"

What I'd LIKE to see them do with good old Thunder Road:

Paint it in the original red, white and blue.

Put tracer lights around the ENTIRE course, like SFOG'S GASM and Swamp Fox in MB.

Doing both would make sure that the ride is an impressive sight day or night when seen from the park or Carowinds Boulevard.

I'd also turn off the lights in the tunnel - that'd make that a blast at night. That's always one great thing about Carolina Cyclone at night - the tunnel.

The other thing - RACE the trains - it's a RACING coaster. Every so often the ops want to race and sync the trains - and it's always 10x more fun when they do that. One time last season the ops were really in to it - asking over the speakers which side would win, and for everyone to cheer for their side. They'd do this up the lift and then again when we'd come into the station. It made the ride SO much fun that day - like back in the "old days".

My only other suggestion - whatever they did to slow down Hurler for most of my rides this season, DON'T do it to T-Road. Actually, it seems like they fixed up that one train on the backwards side that would ALWAYS lose whenever they happened to race, and both sides seem to run a good bit faster on the return run. Usually I got bored after the turnaround drop, but this year it's been fun on the return leg - they even seem to let the train almost fly into the station instead of slamming on the brakes right after the tunnel - again, more like the old days. I'm guessing over time they're getting less paranoid about the '99 station collision.

Still though, while it'd be nice to be painted, etc. - remember that it doesn't have trims anywhere - Racer does. Heck, PKI brakes Beastie - their version of Scooby Doo. I'd rather have a coaster that rides good over one that looks good.....

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Ken

You're locked and ready to fly!

I do like the idea about the lights Ken. That would make it look more impressive.

This post is moreso a test to see if I can post here now with my new PC. With webtv, I couldn't post here anymore since the site was upgraded. To answer the post, I think Thunder Road looks better painted white. If all of the wood was actually the same color, then the natural color wouldn't look so bad.

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-PC '03-

What is it with the Paramount and Six Flags parks and their refusal to actually race racing coasters? Like the above post says, it make the ride 10x more fun. You can tell by the reactions on the trains, especially the winning train. Smiling faces and cheering defnitely add to the overall quality of the customer's experience. Something both chains need improving at.