why drachen fire closed?

I talked to someone who used to be pretty high up in the Busch empire, about Drachen Fire's removal. He told me that although the ride wasn't any rougher than any other Arrow, it was not really suitable for the type of audience that Busch Gardens attracts.

Shaggy, the Batwing in this case isn't the same elements as Vortex's or TT's. In DF's case I frequently hear it referred to as a "cutback" as well.

http://history.amusement-parks.com/Drachen%20Fire/drachenfire2.jpg

At least I think that's what the "batwing" was referring to in the previous posts. *** Edited 7/12/2006 6:55:48 PM UTC by matt.***

According to ACE News (when the ride was announced), the BATWING is the COBRA ROLL element. The unique inversion after the first corcscrew is the CUTBACK.

Elements

Wrap around corkscrew- over 100' in the air after a train lenth drop off the lift

floater hill - not really with shoulder restraints

batwing -arrow's name later called cobra roll on B&M rides

interlocking corkscew top half - not really interlocked more like stacked, removed a few seasons later to smooth out ride. Ride lost alot of visual appeal after the re-profile

cut back - felt like you were entering a corkscrew but half way thru changed your mind and went back the way you came. I barely felt this inversion. Tennessee Tornado has a next gen cutback that doent invert as the rides enters the brakes

interlocking corkscrew bottom half - again not truely interlocked, probably built as a tribute to Loch Ness Monster's interlocking loops

tight high speed helix - located under the batwing. You could walk into the middle of this element for great pictures

Wait, so Drachen Fire featured interlocking corkscrews, which were not interlocked, as a tribute to Lochness Monster, which has interlocking vertical loops, which are interlocked.

Right. *** Edited 7/12/2006 9:01:12 PM UTC by matt.***

This Video/DVD has on-ride footage of all six inversions from DF:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/6305078890/qid=1152739122/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/104-5753261-4350369?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130

With rides like Top Gun and The Beast being built in East Jesus, I don't believe for one second that DF was in a "bad location" despite the fact that the park hasen't built anything over there in the past 4 years

I don't think the ride was in a "bad location" per se. I just think the quality of the ride was awful, and the location, in turn, didn't help. There's no reason a good coaster couldn't be very popular back there, its just a case of a crappy coaster hurting for ridership even more because of it.

There is no bad location in a theme park. Ideally, you want to put your large attractions in the rear of the park so that you draw people past everything else in the park and hope they spend more money on food and souvenirs. DF didn't close because of location; it closed because it was plagued with problems and it was a very rough ride. BGW tried to fix the roughness by removing a loop, but it was still a horribly rough coaster. After a while, it was costing them too much money to keep trying to fix the coaster than it did to tear it down. They tried to sell it, but no one wanted it.

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They tried to sell it, but no one wanted it.

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Which says a lot right there. The way steel coasters are sold and relocated, if this was such a GREAT coaster, then surely some other park somewhere would have been interested in it. After being on the market for so long, I don't think it was the asking price that kept buyers away. I mean, they sold the thing for scrap... surely some park somewhere would have offered to pay more than scrap value for Drachen Fire IF they thought it was worth it.

Evidently, no one thought that it was, and off to teh scrap heap it went.

Many people seem to be bemoaning the removal of Drachen Fire.

As I have wondered before... Would those same people be pouring the love onto that coaster if it were still standing... or would they be crying "It's too rough... Tear it down and put in a Dive Machine (or some other type of coaster)!"

I never rode it, but from the accounts that I have heard from people who have, I swear that the only reason why it has attained such legendary status is the fact that it had been standing SBNO for so long and then suddenly taken down.

One reason I think a lot of people who detested the removal of Drachen Fire is not because the fact that it didn't really offer the smoothest or best ride. It's the fact that they didn't replace it with anything the following year. They just left the spot empty years afterwards without a full replacement.

It's different than the situation with Steel Phantom, of whch offered the same type of crappy ride, but instead of tearing it down, most of it was replaced as a new ride "Phantom's Revenge". There were a lot of fans of Steel Phantom, but welcomed Phantom's Revenge since it was a replacement, and not just a tear-down of a decent ride.

The new coaster for Busch still isn't a replacement for Drachen... that'll only happen if a new coaster goes up in the same place as Drachen, or some other new attraction or two goes up in that place.

Another reason people "detest" the removale is that the ride stood there so long teasing us that it would re-open. Then suddenly it's chopped down. also Busch never really gave an official reason for its closure and removal. So we were left with rumors like B&M wwere supposed to build it. It was too rough, an eagle had built a nest in it, it was sold ect..

As for the B&M rumor, I think by now if that were true Busch and B&M could've built the original design.

There's no way that Busch is going to come out and say why that ride was removed.

There's a reason no one bought it. It wasn't low ridership, headbanging, or the pretty blue color.

My Two Cents.....

First of all Drachen Fire's desighn, was a last minute decision.

Drachen Fire was suppose to have been the infamous Arrow Pipeline Coaster Prototype.

From what I understand the desighn was considered to be unsafe. Sources told me that if a female or male with very long hair rode the ride it was a chance it would get tangled somewhere between the track and trains. Yeah I laughed too, until I actually thought about it. It made since.

I was very skeptical of this until on day while visiting the park I was browsing around in the Drachen Fire Gift Shop the year the coaster openend. What did I see. A t-shirt showcasing the pipeline design. Me and a freind was in total awe. Of course we asked the clerk what was up with the shirt. He confirmed the pipeline coaster concept that fell through due to safety issues.

Did you guys know that the all three original corkscrews on Drachen Fire were turned backwards? Meaning you enter them the way you would exit them. Ron Tumor even mentioned this in a rare interview about Drachen Fire.

Drachen Fire opened the year I moved Newport News (a neighboring city of Williamsburg). Alot of area residents had no idea a new coaster was coming to BGE until a few weeks before BGE opened for the 1992 season. There was very little promotion for the ride, and opening day was plaged with problems. Rumors flew that the ride was unsafe, rough, and unreliable.

It was even rumored that a train rolled back mid inversion through the first corkscrew which stood nearly 150 feet off the ground! I do know the lift hill was sped up to give the ride more momentum going through the first corkscrew, so that may be true.

Seemed like everytime the ride went down the local media was all over it. A few months after DF opened it was a total walk on. The media and location of the ride helped kill the coaster.

Drachen Fire was a very loud coaster as well. Kings Mills residents constantly complained about screaming and the clancking of the anti roll back device on the lift hill. The lift hill clanking noise was resolved the following season (1993, but residents still complained. Another nail in Drachen Fires coffin.

It's true BGE tried to sell the coaster, but they wanted the buyer to pay for the deconstruction and shipment of the ride. All of that was not included in the sale. Demolition started on a Monday I think and within a day or two it was gone. I know this because I drove past BGE twice daily to go to work at that time. During the winter with the trees bare you can see all the way to the back of the park where DF was. The coaster was ripped down without a care in the world. It was sad!

It came as no suprise though. BGE is famous for removing rides such as: The Trabant, The Spider, Glissade, Wilde Mouse, Sea Dragons, Le Mans Raceway, Drachen Fire, and The Gladiators Gauntlet. None of these rides have been replaced with similar or same attractions.

Busch Gardens Europe is a spectacular park, but in the past 20 years they have actually removed more rides than installations.

Beer consumption and promotion has been the parks main focus for the past several seasons.

Personally I loved Drachen Fire. It remains as one of my most favorite coasters. I miss it so very much, but oh well, no need crying about it now. There are so many other great coasters and parks to tour.

As always I hope everyone is haveing a safe and groovy 2006 summer - Airromeo !!! *** Edited 7/13/2006 3:53:21 PM UTC by Airromeo4Ever***

Just a little side bit of trivia, Carowinds sold a Vortex shirt the year it opened that actually had a drawing of Drachen Fire for the ride layout. I still have the remnants of that shirt. It was the year that many parks were selling white t-shirts with the rides drawn in blue and ride logos on the sleaves. Other park tees I saw had the correct layouts for thier rides. Oddly enough when I visited Busch they didn't sell this shirt with Drachen Fire.

Anybody else see this shirt or own one?

That's one coaster I wish to have rode.

^^No, but I have a Meteor shirt from Dorney that has a picture of Kennywood's Aero 360 on it, big yellow arrows and all.

If Arrow was worried about people's hair getting caught in the wheel assemblies, then how did TOGO get around that with their ultra twister coasters?

Personally, I liked Drachen Fire. I never got to ride it when it had the original corkscrew. The B&M rumor, however, seems like it could hold some water. If you look at the layout compared to that of Kumba, there are similarities. It's also one of, if not the only, Arrow megalooper to not feature a vertical loop (key being the word megalooper--this excludes the old corkscrew coasters).

The cutback element reminds me of a mini tophat inversion, though I know its more of a corkscrew with the second half reversed. It was kind of a strange inversion, but unique nonetheless.

Those trains sure were sweet looking, and the lights along the sides were really cool. I rode the ride 10 times in 1 day (this being a crowded day). The worst ride was in the second row of the first car. For me, I prefer to ride Arrow loopers in the front row of any car versus the second row, because of room's (comfort's) sake.

The day I rode it, I actually liked Drachen Fire better than Alpie, but I don't think that would hold true now. To me, it was "legendary" because it was well-known and I had seen a coaster program featuring it years before I rode it.

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rablat5 said:
The B&M rumor, however, seems like it could hold some water. If you look at the layout compared to that of Kumba, there are similarities. It's also one of, if not the only, Arrow megalooper to not feature a vertical loop (key being the word megalooper--this excludes the old corkscrew coasters).

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Busch had a lot of input into the design of both, that is why they have similarities. But B&M was not involved with the design of Drachen Fire.

I dont understand the facination with this ride, I rode it and thanks to my taller build didnt get my ears boxed by the OTSR but I still came off with a headache. In addtion to the pain, the ride was not interesting at all, there was very little change in g-forces (except the bunny hill) so it was also a boring ride.

The thing may have looked interesting but it really wasnt.

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Jeffrey Seifert said:
Busch had a lot of input into the design of both, that is why they have similarities. But B&M was not involved with the design of Drachen Fire.

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This is an argument that's going to go on forever. There is no solid evidence that B&M was not involved in Drachen Fire. But on the other hand, there is no good proof (besides observation) that they were involved. I know how I feel about it, and I'm comfortable with that. But I'm not going around claiming to know the absolute truth, because (as far as I'm concerned) nobody on these boards knows it.

-Nate