#delayed broadcast

Graduation Day

Well, it's finally here. The end of college. It's definitely been a ride and did not pan out the way I expected it to, but I've reached the end.

More talk about my college experience in general below the cut.

Photo Sources: All photos are mine

Snoopy's Soap Box Racers at Kings Island!

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Opened: 2024 Manufacturer: Vekoma Height: 75.5 ft (23 m) Speed: 37.3 mph (60 kph) Length: 672.6 ft (205 m) Place in my rankings: #121 (landing between Pandemonium at Six Flags Fiesta Texas and Cedar Creek Mine Ride at Cedar Point)

It's that time again! I rode two new coasters at Kings Island about a week and a half ago, so that means you guys get two new coaster posts! I think going forward, TTC posts will be listed in the order I get new credits, rather than ranking them in batches. That way, the number at the top matches the number in my progression of credits haha. I'll still have where they fall in my rankings listed above of course (though the rankings listed on the posts I have linked - Pandemonium and CCMR in this case - won't be up to date with my current rankings since I move things around a lot lol)

Anyways, with that out of the way, let's talk about Snoopy's Soap Box Racers! This was my first time riding one of Vekoma's Family Boomerang coasters. I'd heard good things about them for awhile now, so I was definitely looking forward to getting to try one, and it didn't disappoint! It wasn't the most mind blowing thing ever of course, it is still meant to appeal to all ages, but I thought it was super fun! It makes a great stepping stone coaster in the park for kids who are ready to move on from the park's smaller rides like the Great Pumpkin Coaster or Woodstock Express, but aren't quite ready to tackle the more intermediate rides like Queen City Stunt Coaster or Adventure Express.

In terms of thrill, I'd put it about on par with the neighboring Woodstock's Air Rail, since they both offer something new for kids while not being too much. Woodstock's Air Rail hangs below the track and has a bit more forces, where as this goes both forwards and backwards with more banked turns and a bit more speed. The fact that Soap Box Racers is right next to Woodstock's Air Rail also makes for a great showcase in how much Vekoma has evolved over the years. Air Rail, built in 2001, is one of Vekoma's old Suspended Family Coasters, commonly nicknamed Hang and Bangs, due to their roughness. Snoopy's Soap Box Racers, by comparison, is absolutely glass smooth. These Family Boomerangs, along with all the other newer high thrill coasters Vekoma has put out over the last decade or so really goes to show how much they've reinvented themselves.

As for the ride experience itself, there's not too much going on here but it really doesn't need to be overly complicated for what it is. You go up a backwards lift before it releases the train, sending you back through the station and through the course going forward. You then wind through a figure eight shaped course of banked turns right up along the ground before rising up an inclined spike towards the front side of the ride. This then sends the train backwards through the course and returning to the station. Again, not a whole lot to the ride but still a lot of fun for what it is ^^

So yeah, I'd say a very solid family coaster, bordering on family-thrill. I also thought the theming of the ride was very cute and super well done. You guys know me, I'm a big Peanuts fan, so I found the whole thing to be super charming. I liked getting to ride the Esnupi Coaster :3

Photo Sources: x / x

The Beast at Kings Island!

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Opened: 1979 Manufacturer: Built in-house by Kings Island Height: 110 ft (34 m) Drop: 141 ft (43 m) Speed: 64.78 mph (104.25 kph) Length: 7,361 ft (2,244 m) My most recent ride: 2019

In the world of roller coasters, there are very few rides out there that are more legendary than The Beast. Built in-house by Kings Island with the help of designer Charles Dinn, the ride sprawls over 35 acres (14 hectares) of land with nearly 7,400 feet of track. It opened in 1979 with the records for the tallest, longest and fastest roller coaster in the world, and still far and away retains its record for the world's longest wooden roller coaster.

The Beast has been described as the world's largest "backyard roller coaster" because that's basically what it was. Like I said, it was built in-house by the park, not by a larger roller coaster manufacturing company, in an era without computer aided design or even more advanced scientific calculators, so all of the calculations for the ride's construction were done by hand. This is what leads to the ride's quirky, unconventional layout of wide, sprawling turns, long straightaways and massive helices. It may not be as thrilling a layout as more modern coasters, but it's part of what gives the ride it's character.

Like a lot of other coasters at Kings Island, like Adventure Express and the Bat, Beast makes great use of the park's hilly and heavily wooded terrain. Almost the whole ride takes place near ground level, racing through the trees, which adds to one of the ride's most famous attributes: it's night ride. People praise night rides on rides like the Voyage at Holiday World or Boulder Dash at Lake Compounce, but no other ride has night rides as highly regarded as the Beast. I unfortunately have never had the chance to experience the Beast at night, but I seriously hope to one day. The ride is so far out in the woods away from the park that it's completely dark with the only light being from the moon if you're lucky.

In my experience from the one ride I've had on the Beast (it was closed all day when I went back to the park in 2024 </3), I thought it was a riot. Again, not the most thrilling, but easily one of the most unique rides I've ever done. Flying through the woods on such a long ride was great, and the final huge double helix was fantastic. I don't remember it being particularly rough either. Like all of the other wooden coasters at the park, Kings Island takes fantastic care of this ride. I haven't had the chance to ride it since it got some substantial re-tracking and re-profiling from the Gravity Group a few years ago, but I've heard it's a great update.

And one additional sidenote, The Beast is one of the best fitting names for a roller coaster I have ever seen. There really is no other way to describe this ride. Apparently, it got it's name from the people building it referring to it as "a beast of a project" and that is just so perfect.

Photo Sources: All photos are mine

American Eagle at Six Flags Great America!

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Opened: 1981 Manufacturer: Intamin Height: 127 ft (38.7 m) Drop: 147 ft (44.8 m) Speed: 66 mph (106.2 kph) Length: 4,560 ft (1,417.3 m) Place in my rankings: #80 (landing between Scorpion at Busch Gardens Tampa and Roar at Six Flags America)

If we're talking classic, iconic rides at Six Flags Great America, you gotta talk about American Eagle. This ride has been an icon of the park for 45 years and it's still going strong! It didn't open with the park like Whizzer did, but coming 5 years into the park's life and it far and away gave them the headliner attraction they deserved. Built towards the tail end of the wooden racing coaster craze of the 70s and early 80s, American Eagle topped all of the others that came before it in terms of scale. It opened as the tallest and fastest roller coaster, of any kind, wood or steel, in the world in 1981 and held those records until 1988. Today, it still holds the records for tallest, fastest, longest, and largest drop on a wooden racing coaster.

Like Whizzer, American Eagle was closed the first time I came to the park in 2024. Since it was still early in the season when I visited then, it was still closed because it was having track work done. Over the last decade or so, from what I'd heard, the park had also been letting American Eagle slip in terms of quality and ride experience. It had been getting more and more rough and hadn't had its two tracks race in nearly a decade. It could run both sides, but when they did, they would either only operate one side and switch them throughout the day, or stagger dispatches so the trains wouldn't race. This is thought to be in order to limit wear and tear on the structure. I'd also heard that the ride was REALLY rough, especially in its enormous 560° helix turnaround, so I was worried about what the ride would be like going into it.

But on this visit, American Eagle was open, but what was even better was that it was racing!! For the park's 50th anniversary this year, American Eagle was running in top condition and the park announced before the season began that the ride would race as it should for the first time in years! So needless to say, I was very excited to hear that :3 I got two rides on American Eagle during my visit, one on the red side and one on the blue side! If I had to pick, I think I liked the blue side slightly more but I thought both were very good for what they were! My first ride on blue side was only a semi-race, in the fact that they did dispatch the red train alongside us, but it didn't have anyone in it lol. My ride on red side was a full race with the blue side full of people as well hehe.

In terms of ride experience, I thought the ride was a lot of fun! What I think American Eagle does best is it's speed and sense of scale. This ride is HUGE!! And like a lot of big wooden coasters, the ride just feels massive when you look at it. It's dense wooden structure painted bright white with the red running rails and blue floorboards completing the all-American look. Going down that drop and flying over the hills on the outward leg really gives a great feeling of speed. And with the refurbishments the ride got prior to the season, I thought it was running fantastically! I found it to be very smooth for a wooden coaster, still having that characteristic rumble that you expect from a woodie, but not nearly the jackhammer fest I was braced for lol. Even in the ride's massive helix, which I'd heard was the worst part of the ride, I didn't notice any roughness really at all! Same goes for the return run and final helix as you hit the final brake run, really a very enjoyable ride all around!

If I had to give one thing I wish American Eagle did better, it would be airtime. None of the hills, or even the first drop for that matter, gave any kind of noticeable negative Gs. There may have been some slight weightlessness feelings on a couple of them, but I do think the other racing woodies like the ones at Kings Island or Kings Dominion did better in that department. So I was a bit underwhelmed with the airtime, but another area that American Eagle surprised me with was laterals. Mainly in that giant helix turnaround, it starts of slow, but you build up a decent amount of speed as you go around it. So by the time you're coming around the last bit of it, you've got some surprisingly strong forces pushing you to the side, which I hadn't expected lol.

A few other minor closing notes: American Eagle has one of the most bizarrely set up entrance paths/queue lines I've ever seen lmao. The ride itself is set way back from the park, on the other side of the park's train line and a service road, so the path to get there winds and zigzags all up and over those before coming back down into the station lol. I also think it's funny how this ride was built by Intamin, who is much more well-known for their crazy steel coasters. Additionally, when they were brought in to build American Eagle, they had only one coaster to their name: the tiny little steel kiddie coaster Wilderness Run at Cedar Point. Talk about swinging for the fences on your second run at building a coaster lmao.

And the last point that I'll bring up is that, as of now at least, American Eagle is my second favorite racing coaster I've done! I put it above all the other out-and-back wooden racing coasters I've done, which are Racer at Kings Island, Racer 75 at Kings Dominion, and Thunder Road at Carowinds. It's also well above Racer at Kennywood haha. I even have American Eagle ranked a few spots ahead of Gemini at Cedar Point! The only racing coaster that tops this one for me is Lightning Racer at Hersheypark, just because that layout is so much more dynamic. But kudos to Great America for keeping this classic coaster running and running so well at that for the park's 50th season! Hopefully the Eagle stays racing for many years to come!

Photo Sources: All photos are mine

Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point!

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Opened: 2018 Manufacturer: Rocky Mountain Construction Height: 205 ft (62 m) Speed: 74 mph (119 kph) Length: 5,740 ft (1,750 m) My most recent ride: 2022

Well guys, we finally made it. Since starting this in mid April and detailing 169 other roller coasters, we have finally reached the crown jewel. Was this a predictable number one? Yeah, there's no denying that lol. But so many people have Steel Vengeance as their number one for good reason. Frankly, this ride is nearly unbelievable. It's like two coasters combined into one, with the first half having these huge elements and the second half being composed of much smaller and tighter maneuvers. Calling the difference between the ride's original form of Mean Streak compared to what it is now "night and day difference" doesn't even begin to asses the magnitude of difference between the two.

When Cedar Point called in RMC to work their magic on this ride, they set out to build the greatest roller coaster in the world, and for my money, they achieved that goal. Every good thing you've heard people say about Steel Vengeance is true. It was advertised as having more airtime than any other coaster in the world, at nearly 30 full seconds of out-of-your-seat weightlessness and I believe that statistic. The airtime on this ride is unreal, in terms of both quantity and quality. Every element on this ride is near perfect or better. There are zero dead spots and the ride hauls through its layout from beginning to end. The pacing of all of it is basically flawless.

You start getting airtime before you even go up the lift hill, as there's a small pre-lift section with two little bunny hills. They don't really give traditional airtime but more so lurch you forward in a fun way that gives you a taste of what's to come. You then start up the ride's massive (and incredibly loud) lift hill. Climbing up, you get a fantastic view of the park to the right and Lake Erie to the left and straight ahead. Then you crest the top and get flung over the ride's massive vertical drop. Since it hits that 90 degree angle, you get some awesome ejector airtime all the way down. It may not be my all time favorite first drop, as it's not quite as good as some others like Fury 325, El Toro or Iron Rattler, but it's still amazing. The drop also goes basically all the way to ground level, so it feels super sustained as well.

Coming out of the drop, you fly over this little itty bitty speed hill. Because you're going forward at such a high rate of speed, this hill is kinda similar to those in the pre-lift section in that it throws you forwards more than it throws you straight up. But then you rise up into the absolutely enormous camelback hill. It's so big that people have nicknamed it the "top hat", although officially, a true top hat (like the one found on Top Thrill Dragster for example) have both a vertical ascent and decent, which this one doesn't. Even though it's not really a top hat, it still has some absolutely astounding airtime. Through the whole crest of the element, you get amazing, sustained ejector airtime. Though not to be outdone, as you dive out of that and into the next hill, which is also gigantic and banks outward at the apex. So you're banked to the left as you're turning right, making for another 5+ second long blast of sustained ejector airtime. These first two hills rival the first two camelbacks on El Toro in terms of how long the airtime lasts and how powerful it is.

Coming off the outer banked hill, you dive back down and go into a step up over the ride's entrance, giving another great airtime moment and then rise up again into the first inversion. This zero-G roll feels very similar to the one on Iron Rattler, since you go through it as you're rising up. But on Steel Vengeance, as you go through the roll, getting some great weightlessness, it continues rotating super smoothly in a clockwise direction into a banked turn to the right. It almost feels like you rotate one and a half times going through it and it feels so seamless. You then navigate a wave turn (a hill that banks 90 degrees to the side at the apex) super high off the ground, getting a quick pop of sideways airtime, before unbanking and whipping into the ride's second inversion. This is a zero-g stall, but it's very different from any of the other ones I've done on rides like Goliath or Wildcat's Revenge. Rather than being shaped parabolically, this one is angled down and you whip in and out of this thing so fast. It's so snappy, but even with how fast you go through it, you still get some brief hang time. You then come down from where the inversions are, high off the ground and hit a double down getting some more airtime as you make your way to the ground. That's then immediately followed by another airtime filled step up, a quick turn to the left and another airtime pop as you go into the mid-course brake run.

On most coasters, this is where the ride would end. But Steel Vengeance is not "most coasters". This is only the halfway point of the ride and it's the only moment between the first drop and final brakes where you have any kind of a chance to catch your breath. You then come down off the mid-course brakes through another great, airtime filled drop, hit another double up with two more airtime pops, and hit another off-axis airtime hill. This one isn't nearly as big as the one earlier in the ride but this might be my favorite airtime moment on Steel Vengeance. You're banked outwardly to the right as you're turning slightly to the left, giving some crazy ejector airtime. Then, as a bonus, as you drop down this hill, you dive into the ride's structure, making for fantastic headchoppers. Almost the entire second half of Steel Vengeance takes place within the ride's wooden structure, making for an amazing visual experience, tons of head/handchoppers and an amazing feeling of speed. So keep the fact that you're surrounded by wood on all sides for pretty much all of the rest of this layout breakdown lol.

Flying through the structure, you go through an overbanked turn, followed by a zero-G roll. You whip through this one super fast as well, getting great laterals and still some weightless hang time. You pop out of the structure briefly for two smaller airtime hills that give even more awesome ejector before flying back into the sea of wooden supports. You then hit another wave turn with a very pronounced airtime hill that's banked completely on it's side. This gives you some more crazy sideways airtime which again is accentuated by being surrounded by the structure. That wave turn is immediately followed by the final inversion, another zero-g roll. This one isn't taken quite as fast as the previous one, offering even better hang time, but it still has great whip in and out of it. You then hit one more overbanked turn before coming out of the structure for the last time for Steel Vengeance's grand finale.

This finale is SIX back to back airtime packed bunny hills. Each one of them throws you out of your seat so strongly that your butt barely has time to return to your seat before the next one launches you back up. These hills may be small, but do not underestimate them. The last of the airtime hills hits as you go into the final brake run, ending your near minute and a half long ride on Steel Vengeance.

Unlike the coasters I've talked about for the last few days, I initially wasn't sure if Steel Vengeance was my new number one upon getting off for my first time. This was one I had to give some thought to, deciding whether I liked this more than Fury 325. But when it came down to it, I'm an airtime guy, and while Fury does have some awesome airtime moments, it's air is nothing compared to what Steel Vengeance has. While Steel Vengeance isn't quite as long as Fury, it's still a VERY long ride and never leaves me unsatisfied with its experience.

So there we have it. All 170 roller coasters that I've ridden as of this past April. We have covered some truly exceptional rides as well as some exceptionally BAD ones haha. But through all of it, as cliche as it may be at this point, Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point comes out on top. Will it ever be exceeded in my rankings? I won't say it's impossible, but it will take something REALLY incredible to do that. Some that I could see beating Steel Vengeance for me could be Eejanaika at Fuji-Q Highland in Japan, Tatsu and X2, both at Six Flags Magic Mountain, T-Express at Everland in South Korea, or a few other rides here and there. But for now, Steel Vengeance holds the crown as the best roller coaster I have ever ridden.

Thanks for checking out today's coaster post! Keep an eye out for tomorrow's coaster!

Reach for the Stars!

Photo Sources: All photos are mine

Whizzer at Six Flags Great America!

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Opened: 1976 Manufacturer: Schwarzkopf Height: 70 ft (21.3 m) Speed: 42 mph (67.6 kph) Length: 3,100 ft (944.8 m) Place in my rankings: #86 (landing between Tigris at Busch Gardens Tampa and Demon at California's Great America)

Kicking off this batch of coaster posts talking about the new rides I rode at Six Flags Great America, we have this classic park original coaster! Whizzer was one of the coasters I missed during my first visit to Great America in 2024, since it was closed all day during that visit, so I was eager to get on it this time around. I really didn't know what to expect in terms of ride experience for this one, since I've never really done anything quite in this style before haha.

Overall, I thought Whizzer was a lot of fun and is basically a perfect family-thrill coaster! It's bigger and more dynamic than most family coasters, but isn't too big and scary to drive away younger kids who are looking to take their next step up to a bigger ride. In fact, with a height requirement of only 36 inches, that leaves Whizzer open to a ton of younger kids to ride it. Whizzer has a lot of things to it that make it a very satisfying ride for what it is as well. It starts off with en electric spiral lift hill, which is something you rarely come across on coasters these days. It's a long, slow spiral up to the top but the novelty of it makes up for that. It also provides a nice view of the trees that surround the whole ride, and the surrounding park once you get to the top.

The rest of the layout mainly consists of long, shallow drops, twists and banked turns that stay mostly low to the ground. This allows Whizzer to show off what I think are it's two best qualities: its speed and its forces. While that first drop is pretty shallow in terms of angle, it's so long that it allows the train to pick up some good speed by the time it hits the bottom and swoops along a banked turn right up along the ground. I rode Whizzer in the back car, and since the cars are set up in a bobsled style seating arrangement and I was sitting by myself, there was a lot of room for me to move around back there (while still safely in the car of course). So as the ride went zipping around its turns and dips, I got tossed around a lot in a way that was pretty funny and I thought that gave the ride a lot of character lol. To me, the ride felt like riding a mix between SooperDooperLooper at Hersheypark (another Schwarzkopf coaster) but with the bobsled style trains and forces of Reptilian at Kings Dominion lol.

Like I said, speed and forces are Whizzer's bread and butter here. Really all of the banked turns that hug the ground give a solid amount of positive Gs. Nothing overly crazy or like, gray-out level of course, but I was surprised at how strong they felt compared to what I was expecting. And then the ride has a very nice feeling of speed to it, mainly since the whole layout is surrounded by trees and is partially over a pond. I think it's really nice that Great America kept all these trees around the ride, since it makes it feel a bit more secluded despite being smack in the middle of this huge park lol. I also thought the ride ran pretty smooth for it's age, which is always a plus. Apparently for the park's 50th anniversary this year, a number of track sections got replaced, which led the ride to reopen in June rather than at the start of the season. So I'm glad it reopened by the time I went in July, and I'm happy to see that the park is taking such good care of the ride.

It really is great that Great America has kept Whizzer around for so long. It's an absolute classic of a ride and is actually the last of it's kind still around. This Schwarzkopf Speed Racer model was one of four built, with the others being at California's Great America, Worlds of Fun and Six Flags Over Texas. Texas's closed in 1979, was relocated to Six Flags St Louis but was never rebuilt. California's closed in 1988, and Missouri's closed in 1997 before being relocated and reopened at Parque del Café in Colombia before closing last year. Even Whizzer itself here nearly got axed about 20 years ago. When the park was looking to build Superman - Ultimate Flight, they had initially announced that Whizzer would be removed for it. But that announcement drew so much public backlash that the park changed course and ended up removing their Arrow MegaLooper Shockwave and building Superman in the front of the park instead. Whizzer has lived on ever since and remains a Great America staple.

Photo Sources: All photos are mine

Nighthawk at Carowinds!

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Opened: 2000 (Relocated to Carowinds in 2004) Closed: 2024 Manufacturer: Vekoma Height: 115 ft (35 m) Speed: 51 mph (82 kph) Length: 2,766 ft (843 m) My most recent ride: 2019

Starting off this whole thing is a ride that unfortunately closed pretty recently as part of the new Six Flags cleaning house. Nighthawk was a ride I was never very fond of. I always found it to be uncomfortable, rough, with bad transitions and even worse restraints. The main things I remember about it are the painfully slow operations and by extension, the really long and slow moving line you always had to wait in if you ever wanted to ride it.

Usually I enjoy flying coasters (or at least I've enjoyed the one B&M flyer I've ridden) but I don't think Vekoma really nailed it with this one. It was their first, and from what I've heard, their two others that came after, Firehawk and Batwing, do ride better than Nighthawk did. I never got the chance to ride Firehawk and have yet to get to Batwing though, so I can't speak for those.

The main reason Nighthawk comes up at the bottom of my list is that most coasters, even other bad ones, have something you can do to make the ride experience even slightly more comfortable if you brace yourself a certain way or something like that. You couldn't do that with Nighthawk, at least not in my experience. The restraints were basically light a straitjacket and if you were flying facing down and the train went up, you'd just get thrown into them in a really uncomfortable way. And if you're on your back, you feel the forces of the ride a bit more comfortably, but you're rattling against the seat back from the roughness.

A few pros for Nighthawk, because like I said in the intro post, every ride has at least something positive about it: Firstly, it pulled some strong forces. Especially in the loop you took on your back, the ride had a good variety of forces to offer. And secondly, visually the ride looked great. That bright yellow track and blue supports really looked nice and the ride's placement over the water right as you walked into the park made for a solid entrance plaza. But with it now gone, I'm sure Carowinds will do something great with that space.