Where's the wood?

Ghostrider cost a whopping 24 million when they totalled everything in- expanding the park with what was once part of the marketplace, doing all that earthquake support stuff, adding a new resturant, arcade, bakery, and ghostrider goods, and of course all the Ghostrider theming. Poor knotts family had to give up their whole food line (or just rather lease the name away) to build the thing. Its rumored, though, that Cedar Fair owns the knotts verry farm name entirely (food, theme parks, everything), and just leases the name to Con Agra, the big business that makes all the cookies, jams, oancake mix, etc. So the rumor says that the knotts name produces quite a sum of money in royalties to Cedar Fair. Maybe this is where they're getting the money to add coasters and other rides consecutively to Knotts and Cedar Point. Knotts hasn't even had a break since windjammer was built.

But then shivering timbers only cost 4.5 million. Now that must have been a good deal.

When I've talked to park managers, they have pointed out that one of the most improtant things about a new ride is it's advertising value to draw in more guests. Just how this works can vary from park to park. For many smaller parks it can be very valuable to add an 80 foot well designed woodie. Holiday Worls could advertise that they had added a second great wooden coaster when they built Legend. For Cedar Point promoting an 80 foot woodie with nothing unique would be more difficult.

Exactly. The public would not be interested in hearing...."Come ride our new GCI. It's not tall, fast, or long, but it's really fun!" Sadly, as much as I want new wood, I don't think it would be marketable outside of some sort of new package/expansion, like the past rumored "boardwalk project". Of course, a monster Intamin wood could do the trick....

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- Peabody - a devoted Intamin wood fan after White Cyclone!

*** This post was edited by Peabody on 1/11/2003. ***

First of all you could just try and develope some new element to sell it to the public. Or just keep on going with great steel rides for a few years, and then out of no where, pull out a woody and the public will try it because they believe in the parks designers after all of the previous great rides. Then you won't have to worry about having to much fancy advertising. The GP will see an advertisement and think "Hey, they've haven't dissapoionted me yet, this one shouldn't be to bad. I might as well try it." And right then and there the "average sized" woody will most likely blow them away. Just my thoughts on that.

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Corey
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MF-19
Top Thrill Dragster Coming Soon

I HEART OHIO

Put a 72 degree drop on a 120-135 foot woodie than you will have a record that isn't size related. I don't know why no USA park has the balls to put the world's steepest woodie in their park. Look at Balder and Colossos both in Europe and both are the 2 steepest woodies in the world and Balder is only 118 feet tall with a 70 degree drop! Why are US designers and parks scared to top this??

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Pink Floyd Fanatic. I think the major problem from what I understand is the roughness. Intamin Plug and Plays are what I and some others refer to as a steel disguised as wood. They provide an EXTREMELY smooth ride for an EXTREMELY high price. If I'm not mistaken, Balder, a midsized Intamin Plug and Play cost a staggering $10,000,000!

I think American designers look at Son of Beast and the complaints of roughness and wonder if they want to try something of that scale with the same type of track. I would guess that the degree of the drop would be related under the same category.

On the topic of CP getting wood. I think they need it, but I don't think they'll get it. And I want to know where all this space is at CP that everybody says is there. Where is it? Are you talking about parking lots or what? Look around CP and you'll find you're surrounded by water. Now maybe a wood with steel supports or a steel coaster can be built partially overwater, but with the marina nearby, wouldn't you have to worry about boat collisions and rust of the steel after a while, that's a lot of maintinance (sorry if I murdered that spelling) too. And as others have mentioned, with the rides CP is pushing now, you have to wonder if a wood coaster is marketable. I do think however, that with the advertising company that made hypnotized nearly every skeptic about Dragster on this board, CP could pull it off.

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The below statement is true.
The above statement is false.

*** This post was edited by SFGAMDie HARD on 1/11/2003. ***

The only thing Cp really need is soem great wood. They could easily cough up the few million necessary for a great ride (GhostRider, as far as I can tell, was onyl so expensive due to the earthquake regulations) and then go back to building record-breakers. I think CoastinCorey might be on to something- with several well-publisized successes with the GP in the near past (and probably another one in the near future), people just might say "okay" if CP advertises a "Not too tall, not too fast, not too long, but really really fun" woodie. I can't really speak for most of Chiucagoland, but I know that my whole family was drooling when the adds for Viper started, even though it isn't very large.

Like SFGAMDie Hard, though, I wonder where they'd put it. Wood coasters take up a lot of room, and it doesn't seem to me that they really have that much. Case in point: Dragster. Despite being so high, it really doesn't take up that much space on the ground. Even still, CP was forced to move two flats and sell another one to squeeze it in. So, I was kind of wondering: do you CP frequenters have any specific ideas on where a wooden coaster could go?

Oh man, not the CP space problem argument again. People have been saying this since the mid 90's. Yet CP built one of the largest and tallest coasters on the planet and somehow "gasp" found the space.

Back to the topic. A woodie footprint actually doesnt need to take up that much space anyway (see out and back design, or a tight twister type coaster). So it shouldn't be a problem if they wanted to add one.

I said this before, what they should do is re-build the old CP Cyclone and enhance it (slightly larger) and put it in the board walk area near WT or DT. The marketing could be something along the lines that the feared CP Cyclone has returned to CP, can you handle it this time. Its all about good marketing IMO. Also, have Intamin do it, they are obviously good at making smooth woodies (see Colossos at Heide Park).

*** This post was edited by CPTwister on 1/12/2003. ***

They have the potential to have one of the greatest woodies anywhere, they just need to have someone come in and refurb Mean Streak, preferably the Gravity Group. It would be easier and cheaper than building a new one. They'd just have to figure out a good way to market it.

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Current favorite coasters:
Wooden: 1) Beast 2) Raven 3) Son of Beast 4) The Boss 5) Timber Wolf
Steel: 1) Raging Bull 2) Millennium Force 3) V2 4) Wild Thing 5) Deja Vu / Mr. Freeze (tie)
Visit: http://www.dynamicgroove.com

The last time I went to Cedar Point, I talked to one of the ride OP of Cedar Creek Mine Ride. He said that they get way more riders than MS. I agree that MS needs a lot more attention, and they could renovate it to it's former glory. Other than that, Mean Streak is the most (if not, one of the most) beautiful coasters I've ever seen.

As for a new woodie, CP needs to widen the beach (fill in Lake Erie) on the east side of the main parking lot to build a new woodie similar to Shivering Timbers. The station could sit at the south end of Disaster Transport. -That could be a great midway ~ Wicked Twister, Giant Wheel, Chaos, Troika, Disaster Transport, and the new woodie!

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Feeling down? Ride a roller coaster to bring you up!

*** This post was edited by jkpark on 1/12/2003. ***

Build a Shivering Timbers and take awawy Blue Streak's glory?!!

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Lake Compounce-So Fresh and So Clean Clean

Take away Blue Streaks glory? How about when the Magnum was built, many still flocked to Gemini. Or when MF opened, Magnum still had a good long line. These coasters have their differences such as speed and overbanked turns, but each of them have the same concept: Up and Down, Out and Back steel. Of course Gemini's out and back layout is folded into a figure eight design.

Beam me up Scotty!

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Feeling down? Ride a roller coaster to bring you up!

*** This post was edited by jkpark on 1/12/2003. ***

And I bet that MF will still have long lines this year even with Dragster now at the park.A new woodie would (no pun intended) be nice at CP, but I doubt that we will see another new coaster at CP for a few years. Lets just let Dragster sink in before building something else right now.

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RACE FOR THE SKY!!
TOP THRILL DRAGSTER

If they build a wooden coaster it mine as well be dueling, or they could go for longest. Something to bring in the crowds. Oh well, I just want some airtime.

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The top 3 all time cobrarolls.

1)Raptor's
2)Deja Vu's (times 3)
3)Batman Knight Flight's

If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Actually, I find that a dueling/racing wooden coaster would be quite marketable at Cedar Point (a la` Lightening Racer, but on the beach, and of course for CP, much bigger and longer= "The World's Tallest, Longest, And Fastest dueling racing wooden coaster!") But just remeber, if CP didn't want a rough wooden coaster like Mean Streak again, they can still build it tall , it just doesn't need a drop the same size as the height and that should keep the roughness down. -Just a thought-

Well, let's all see how Dragster does. I agree with you Ultimate Coaster. It probably won't be for a few years until another coaster is built at CP, but it should be a new woodie.

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Feeling down? Ride a roller coaster to bring you up!

Have Intamin build it!!

I would love to see another woodie at CP. I agree that they need something marketable, but maybe they can be creative. If they couldn't build a huge record breaking coaster because of space, expense, and smoothness, then I would suggest the following:

1) Have an indoor/underground woodie (is there such a thing elsewhere in the world?) Underground would be tough, being surrounded by water, but indoor like Disater Transport might work.

2) Can't remember - do they have any heavy wooded area unused? To make a "Beast" like coaster that whips around trees would be cool. I think that's the main reason why I like the "Beast"

3) A dueling, double loop woodie. I know they already have Gemini, but to see a true woodie, with side-by-side trains in a verticle loop would be something to see.

4) Change the layout of Mean Streak. I love this ride, but they could make it smoother, with more air time and a twisted track. And use up all that room in the center where the queue line is (maybe build a lagoon to swoop past).

5) Change or replace the Mine Ride, and change or replace Disaster Transport. They could build two small but effective woodies here. Maybe one could be the kiddie coaster that everyone says they need.

6) Build a woodie over the water. I know this would be hard with the marina and the trouble with sinking, but maybe they know something we don't.

I don't think they would even consider to to replace Mine Ride or Disaster Transport. ~There's still those who are first time riders and want to start out small. Cedar Point wants to keep a good variety.

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Feeling down? Ride a roller coaster to bring you up!

*** This post was edited by jkpark on 1/12/2003. ***

And thise rides are classics. I think they would put a new woodie in its own spot, so they can add one more coaster to their list and have 17 or so.