Drachenfire

[mmcirvin]

I found out just a few days ago that my favorite roller coaster at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg was quietly shut down and dismantled several years back because people were complaining of neck injuries. That sounds plausible to me. Probably it was for the best.

I get the urge to ride on roller coasters about once every ten years, and I ride on them several times, and that's enough for that decade. Which is good because otherwise I might be this guy. A definite theme starts to dominate his narrative around part 3.

Update: Aha... he has a picture of the defunct coaster in question here, as well as some of the ones they put up later. Sounds like he had a better time that day.

Hey... I guess this means I've ridden a roller coaster that he hasn't!! Ha ha! Ow, my liver!

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

These discussions always make me feel old. The last time I went to Kings Dominion was a very, very long time ago, I think before the Anaconda even existed, before it was Paramount's anything, and before I was willing to ride on roller coasters. I think all they had back then was the Rebel Yell, the King Kobra (which wasn't so much a roller coaster as a disembodied piece of one) and the Scooby-Doo over in kiddie land.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I'm a big wussy boy. The Scooby Doo was the only thing I rode.

P.S. Go check out J_Brew's journal. Big coaster nut there

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I am pretty wussy as they come, too; not really big on thrill rides except when I'm in just the right mood, and even then there are some I just won't do. Nothing with prolonged inversion while dangling high up, none of those barfulous swinging-boat things, nothing involving extended or repeated periods of free fall; that stuff just makes me wanna puke. Way worse than roller coasters. I'm not sure I'd even like to ride one of those standing coasters like the Alpengeist; never tried it.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, and those Tower of Terror type things where you know you're suddenly going to drop down some hellacious shaft but you don't know when? No frigging way.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

"So, Matt," I hear you thinking, "why will you ride on roller coasters that fling you around upside down and have big drops in them?"

I was thinking about this last night. Part of it is that when a roller coaster has you inverted, there are usually G forces holding you in, and the long drops typically aren't completely vertical, because the coaster and its passengers are supposed to be held down by inertial forces most of the time.

With really modern coasters that's not necessarily 100% true, I suppose. But even then, the emphasis is different from the other rides; you're strapped into a crazy vehicle and the thrill is in the question of where the crazy vehicle is going. Whereas with some non-coaster rides the thrill is in the implicit, if idle, threat that your seat might drop out from under you entirely or drop you out into space. That puts even really wild coasters just barely on the right side of my limit, whereas the swinging boat is not. Roller coasters make me scream but they don't make me nauseated.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I was wary of Alpengeist, too, but it was perfectly fun. The trick is to get the whole rig adjusted from the get-go, including the angle of the "Seat" which is, I regret to say, bicycle-seat-like, though you don't really sit on it.

And I can tell you that Kings Dominion's "Berzerker," (I think) which is a swinging boat ride that does, in fact, stay inverted (SFX: lots of coins falling) for a few seconds in the on a couple of occasions during the ride, is going way too far for me. However, I do like Busch Garden's "Battering Ram," which is a less X-treme and more traditional swinging boat ride. I also get nauseated by "Da Vinci's Cradle," which is a kind of boat ride that moves up, down, fore and after on a pair of circular arms. It stays level the whole time, but it tends to be nauseating for me. (SFX: coins sliding and sheet metal, then falling)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I rode the Battering Ram once and was instantly convinced that I didn't want to repeat the experience ever again, let alone try the upside-downy version. I haven't ridden Da Vinci's Cradle, but did ride a rattletrap outdoor version of the same thing at Elitch Gardens (I think it was called the Rainbow) that was unpleasant enough to turn me off those forever, too.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the Hanna-Barbara days. Well, last I checked (over 7 years ago, I think) it's better than it used to be, and the King Cobra is long gone, but it's been replaced by some pretty cool rides, IIRC. Rebel Yell's still there, and so is the wooden coaster, the Grizly.

The last time I was there, I had just moved to Norfolk from Bremerton, WA, and about 4 months later, my next-door neighbor from Bremerton made the same move, to down the street. (This isn't as weird as it sounds-- in both cases we were living on major naval bases, and our fathers both got transfers.) We drove up one day to Kings Dominion and who did we run into in line for the Anaconda but another guy who lived 2 houses down from us in Bremerton-- his dad was transfered to the Pentagon and he and his sister had driven down for a day of coasters. Yaay.