Friday, April 28, 2000
Son of Beast takes off today
Ohio adds to aura with taller, faster rides
By Jim Knippenberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Workers inspect the loop on the Son of Beast Thursday.
(Glenn Hartong photo)
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Ohio is going downhill fast — faster and farther than anyone in the world — and everyone thinks that's a good thing.
Three roller coasters, taller and faster than any in the world, open the next three weekends, setting 16 world records for the state of Ohio, bringing the total to 21.
• Paramount's Kings Island today opens Son of Beast, the world's tallest, fastest wooden coaster (218 feet, 78.3 mph; the first woodie to break the 200-foot and 70 mph barriers) and the world's only looping wooden coaster.
• Batman Knight Flight, the world's longest floorless coaster (4,210 feet), opens May 5 at Six Flags Ohio (formerly Geauga Lake) in Aurora. So does Superman Ultimate Escape, the world's first vertical spiraling coaster, and two other new ones.
• Millennium Force, the world's tallest and fastest steel coaster (310 feet, 92 mph; first to break the 300- foot and 90 mph barriers), opens May 13 at Cedar Point in Sandusky. That park holds the world record for most roller coasters at 14.
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OHIO RIDE RECORDS
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PARAMOUNT'S KINGS ISLAND
• New records (all Son of Beast)
1. World's tallest wooden coaster, 218 feet
2. World's tallest wooden coaster drop, 214 feet
3. World's fastest wooden coaster, 78.3 mph
4. World's only looping wooden coaster
• PKI existing records
5. World's longest wooden coaster, 7,400 feet, The Beast
6. World's tallest gyro drop, 315 feet, Drop Zone
7. Most wooden coaster track of any park, 22,619 feet (4.3 miles)
CEDAR POINT
• New records (all Millennium Force)
1. World's tallest (steel) coaster, 310 feet
2. World's fastest coaster, 92 mph
3. Longest drop on a coaster, 300 feet
4. First coaster to top 300 feet
5. First coaster to use elevator lift system
6. Steepest noninversion banked turn, 122`
7. Most roller coasters in one park, 14 (breaking its own record of 13)
8. Most coaster track in one park, 44,013 (8.3 miles) (breaking its own record of 37,418)
9. Most steel coasters in one park, 12 (breaking its own record of 11)
• Existing records
10. Most carousels at one park, three
11. Most adult rides at one park, 68
SIX FLAGS OHIO (formerly Geauga Lake)
• New records
1. World's longest “floorless” coaster, Batman Knight Flight, 4,210 feet
2. World's first vertical spiraling coaster, Superman Ultimate Escape
3. Most roller coasters put into an existing park in one season, four (The Villain and Road Runner Express are the other two.)
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Why Ohio?
“People always ask why Ohio is such a roller coaster capital. To understand, you have to go back in history,” explains Dennis Speigel, owner of International
Theme Park Services, an Over-the-Rhine consulting firm that works with parks worldwide.
“Traditionally, Ohio has always been a major player in the industry. Early this century, we had Toledo Beach, Euclid Beach, Cedar Point and Geauga Lake statewide, and Chester Park, Coney Island and LeSoursdville Lake here, plus smaller ones all over the state.
“When you think about it,” Mr. Spiegel says, “the explanation is pretty simple: Back when it wasn't easy to travel to the coast, amusement parks started springing up. No beaches, no mountains, you build parks. People have to vacation somewhere.”
“I think (Son of Beast) is definitely going to provide a unique ride experience,” said Don Helbig, a 37-year-old veteran rider who planned to be on his way to the park at 5 this morning.
“It has all the elements to become a legend.”
Mr. Helbig, director of communications for the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, said he has taken more than 15,000 coaster rides at Kings Island since it opened in 1972. A member of the American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE), he goes to the park about three times a week.
Roller coasters draw
Bill Linkenheimer, president of the 6,400-member ACE, has a different theory about “why Ohio?”
“There really isn't necessarily a good reason,” he says. “The best I can come up with is Cedar Point. It's 120-some years old and survived because of a vision — that roller coasters draw crowds. So they went into a serious building mode.
“Other parks in Ohio, Kings Island and Six Flags, in order to compete, had to ... meet Cedar Point on its own terms. That means roller coasters. It's common knowledge that coasters draw the crowds.”
Mr. Speigel seconds that: “No question, the coaster is king, the No. 1 attraction in any park you can name. Look at the line waiting to ride and you get the picture. The truth is, if you have a park, you have to have coasters.”
Another reason is the large population pool with easy access to Ohio, says Scott Dring in the Ohio Division of Travel and Tourism. “Sixty percent of the U.S. population lives within 500 miles of Ohio's borders. That's a tremendous population base to draw upon, and one of the reasons Ohio is the sixth-most-visited state in the U.S.,” with 64 million trips of 50 miles or more.
“The beauty of it is, 92 percent of our visitors drive from regional markets — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana are our big feeders — and most come with a family, the prime park target. It's easy and cheap for them to hop from one park to another because they're all within a few hours of each other.”
International visitors will do the same, Mr. Speigel says: “You'll see people from all over the world coming in for these new coasters. No one has ever seen anything like them. They'll fly in, rent a car and drive around the state.”
Driving around the state is part of the plan, Mr. Dring says. The three major amusement parks realized a long time ago “that the more people who come to one, the more will go to another. One feeds off the other.”
“In February, we went to New York and marketed the parks to the national media as one-stop shopping. Or one-state shopping.”
They may feed off each other, and they may work together sometimes, but competition is still fierce, even though park officials pooh-pooh the idea.
“I know they say they don't compete, and here at home, PKI doesn't compete with Cedar Point,” Mr. Speigel says. “But go to Columbus and ask that question. Both parks are fighting for the state's mid-point and using roller coasters as ammunition.”
Park officials say no.
“Not really,” said Bill Mefford, PKI spokesman. “Son of Beast is a wooden coaster, Millennium is steel, so there's no real competi tion or comparison between them.”
“Oh no, not a war,” said Janice Lifke-Witherow at Cedar Point. “There's a friendly competition where we're always racing for new superlatives, biggest, tallest, fastest, but not a war.
“Millennium Force was in the planning stages long before we knew about Son of Beast. There's no way Millennium was in response to Son.”
Mr. Mefford agrees: “Everything parks do is more or less in response to other parks because it's a competitive industry, but it's certainly not a warlike atmosphere.
“As for us sitting here saying, "What are they doing? Let's do something bigger and better,' that's not the case,” Mr. Mefford said. “We wanted to do something new and different and big that people would talk about.”
That means a roller coaster, Mr. Speigel says. “It's understood in the industry, when you need an attendance pop, you add a coaster.”
Nationwide coaster boom
Apparently a lot of parks needed a pop: 44 new coasters will open nationally this year, including Ohio's six.
None of which is cheap. PKI won't say what Son cost, but industry sources put it at $17 million. Cedar Point is spending $25 million on Millennium. Six Flags Ohio is sinking $40 million into its coasters and other park upgrades.
Whether the cash will translate to bodies remains to be seen. Park officials think it will, but won't go into numbers.
Mr. Dring won't even guess: “We see a 2 to 3 percent jump in travel numbers every year. A lot of them will go to the parks, but I can't guess how many.”
Mr. Linkenheimer won't say either, but he's sure “You'll see ACEers all over the state all summer. We already have a group of several hundred coming to Kings Island at the end of June.”
But after 35 years in the business, Mr. Speigel is pretty sure he knows the numbers: “You'll see at least a quarter-million people more than last year at Kings Island and the same at Cedar Point.
“We're talking two prototype coasters here, two things the world has never seen. People are going to flock just to see them, let alone ride them.”
• Take a tour of the new coaster
Mike Pulfer contributed to this report.
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