PTR: SFGAm 6/3/09

So...I went to Six Flags Great America for the first time in a few years on the third. The drive up there was supposed to take 3 hours max, but it ended up taking over four because of Chicago traffic and large amounts of major highways being rebuilt. Typical. It was kinda chilly (The high was in the upper 50s) and there was a strong north wind, so the water park was closed. This meant slightly longer lines, but it actually seemed to add some thrill to all the rides, which all felt more forceful than I had remembered. Hm.


The first signs of the park! Raging Bull isn't really visible from far away because of all the development and trees, so it just pops out of nowhere.
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Here's a not so good sign...there were a bunch of little junior high kids running around the park screaming for the first few hours we were there. Luckily it started clearing up at around 2. (Exact quote: "OMG WE'RE AT SIX FLAGS!!!! WE'RE AT SIX FLAGS!!!! *Scream*")


Raging Bull and Viper look sexy together.


Superman from the parking lot.


I kind of wish Shockwave was still in this spot, but at least Superman is an okay ride.


1...2...3...4...5...6...


7?


Apparently SFGAm is being marketed as the "World's Cleanest Theme Park" this year. Trash cans with this rhyme on them were everywhere. (They lost the rhyming vibe on line three...)


Yes, I mean EVERYWHERE. (How many trash cans do you count in this picture?)


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That's right, there are 15 trash cans! [:O]


Raging Bull looked sexy with its new paint job.




Too bad the ride is killed by this......


Giant Drop broke down right when we got in line, and was down for the rest of the day. It still looked cool though?


Iron Wolf was running really well and was my favorite ride of the day. It totally kicked Mantis's ass. It's also probably the closest I'll ever get to riding an Intamin standup. [:(]


Leaving the loop.


Batman was a lot better than I had remembered it, and was running pretty well.


As much as I think CP is overrated, V2 wasn't as good as Wicked Twister. It was still really fun though.


Demon was also running well. However it's never been all that great to me, besides the vertical loops. I love how the train lurches through those things.


American Eagle is very secluded, and the park is really neglecting it. They were only running one side at a time, the whole thing needs to be painted and holy crap do they need to retrack that thing. The first three valleys had just enough jackhammering to be fun, but when you're going 10 miles per hour into an extremely drawn-out helix and it's painful, something really needs to be done.


Superman needed some paint also.


I tried to get a shot of the Chicago skyline from the car on the way back, but I kinda failed. Oh well.

As for the coasters of today:

Raging Bull: 7.75
The first drop is really fun, but the rest of the ride is completely killed by those trims. There's some good airtime in the back, but as soon as you hit the first hill you just feel like you're dragging through the layout and that SF is ripping you off to save a few dollars on replacement parts. Bleh. The new paint looked pretty sexy, though.

Viper: 7.25/10
Viper was just overall a fun ride. There was airtime in a few places, some minor roughness (the good kind), and lats on a few of the turns. On a different note, the park REALLY needs to hire a person to only let a certain amount of people into the loading area at a time. The entire loading area was packed full of people in no order at all, so you basically had to barge your way through to get on the ride.

Whizzer: 6.75/10
Wheeeeee. That's about it. Most of the ride was more fun than thrilling. I've always been a big fan of those low-to-ground Schwarzkopf turns, though. Lesson learned from this ride: your shoulder does NOT appreciate it when you try to reach out and touch the grass then hit a Schwarzkopf transition.

Demon: 6.25/10
The two loops are fun, but the straight sections are a waste. There is a massive pop of airtime going over the first drop in the back, and the horrible Arrow transition into the corkscrews was (painfully) awesome. It was too short for my likings though.

V2: 8.25/10
I love impulse coasters. While this one didn't have the twisting back spike, there was some free-fall and then the front spike covered the twistiness. I also got to witness two junior high girls have literal panic attacks and come back the the station crying. Woo? You decide.

American Eagle - Red: 7/10
As mentioned, the park needs to retrack and repaint this. It was still fun though, offering some mild jackhammering and some light airtime. The first drop could have been MUCH better though, and the racing aspect would have added some fun to the ride.

Iron Wolf: 8.75/10
The pacing on Iron Wolf is amazing. It's non-stop flying through the trees it was build around and weaving through itself. There was also a minute amount of headbanging for a standup ride, and I actually had some added fun trying to keep my ears from being crushed.

Spacely's Sprocket Rockets: 3/10
Yeah, I'm a credit whore. This ride provided what was probably the best on-ride photo of me ever.

Ragin' Cajun: 3.25/10
Ow. This was not fun. It looked fun, but it wasn't. The ride ops struck up conversation about the fact that the team of the jersey I was wearing lost a game in the last 5 seconds a few days earlier. Our car didn't spin at all. There are now bruises on my thighs. Not a fun ride. If you're going to build a spinner, make it a Gersty or a Maurer Sohne.

Batman: The Ride: 8.25/10
I actually like this Batman more than the later clone at SFSTL. There are some bonus near-ground sweeps, and it's just as forceful as it's Dolly down south. Fun ride, minute head-banging.

Superman Ultimate Flight: 8/10
This is another of those "wheeeeee" rides. There was more force this time on the valley of the first drop, due to some roughness. I lovelovelove the bizarre forces of the pretzel loop. It goes from 1g to airtime, to being pinned on your back, to airtime, to a banked turn. I kinda wish the rest of the ride was as forceful as that, but it does what it was meant to do. (By that I mean giving you the feeling you are flying.) One bad note: I lost 32 cents in change. [:(]

Dark Night: 3.5/10
SF fail. This was such a waste of money. The whole thing was based off of theming. In the Q, you are forced to watch some 10-minute video clip that is basically taken from the movie, even if there is no wait. The only fun part of the ride was the smoothness of the hairpin turns, which made me think that it might be ok after all. I was wrong. After the hairpin turns, there was just as much pain and lameness as Ragin' Cajun. Available GCI>regular wild mouse coasters>rare steak>electrical burns>Dark Night.

Thanks for a great day SFGAm, and even though you made a horrible horrible decision on which ride to install for this year, it was a good visit.

EDIT: If you want any of these photos in full size, PM me and I'll send them to you. (I don't have PRO Flickr yet.)

[gouldy]

Some really nice photos man! Raging Bull does look really nice, but I can imagine how gay it is with the trims killing the speed.

And I know exactly what you're saying about Dark Knight, I rode the one at SFGAdv. and I presume they are exactly the same. It was all about the theming, and nothing about the ride experience.

What kind of camera do you have? Pretty nice photos.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Yeah I went that same day. I think the cold really killed the experience since all of the rides were running really slow except for Whizzer it seems. You can usually get jackhammer air in the back of the Eagle and you didn't even get that on it because everything was running so slow. I gotta say they've done an incredible job cleaning the place up compared to years past.

Also Demon's new black train = <3. I love the fire paintjob.

Demon is alright until the corkscrews, then your neck is broken.
I don't even care about the trims, probably because I never went on it before they got installed, I love that ride. Viper is awesome too. Never rode Eagle because the motor decided to break down before we got on. Glad to see the weather was a HELL of a lot better than when I went. Cold, bad overcast, (it wasn't chilly, it was FREEZING!)[:(]

Originally posted by Jakizle

What kind of camera do you have? Pretty nice photos.

I have a Sony DSC-H3. It takes some nice HD photos, but I think it was mostly the lighting at the time that made some of those look brighter. (It was about 2pm and there were no clouds in sight.)

Originally posted by Coasterkidmwn
Also Demon's new black train = <3. I love the fire paintjob.

Yeah that thing looked awesome. I was trying to get a pic of it instead of the red train but I wasn't patient enough. [sillyme]

Eagle was retracked a few years ago and has always been rough through the helix so the tracking is not the problem. I do agree that it seems to be running a little slow but it has had a lot of work over the last 5 years or so, including paint. So I think they need to leave it alone for awhile so it can find it's groove again.

I've found Demon to be much more comfortable the last 2 years. As long as you are prepared for the bottom of the drop into the corkscrew, it's pretty smooth. For an Arrow.

I cannot believe you thought Iron Wolf was the best of the day. Unless your head is made of rubber and therefore cannot get hurt. I will never, ever get on those trains again. EVER!

BTW, good views of the skyline are not available from the interstate. If you want a good view next time, detour to Lake Shore Drive for your downtown part of the drive. Also, I live in Chicago and should only have to travel 40 minutes to SFGam however, the last 3 years, while construction is going on on I294, it takes considerably longer. Since it takes so long now, you can take route 21 to the park and it's not too much faster but is much more scenic so if you are going to be stuck at a slower pace, at least there are nice things to look at.

^Yeah I actually had fun on the entrance to the corks, most likely since I knew it was coming up. Also I think the reason I loved Iron Wolf so much compared to some people is that I'm almost 6'2" now so I don't get as much headbanging as other people, plus I have a fun time trying to keep my head in the middle.

Thanks for the info on the alternate route, I'll definitely try that next time I go up there. And I know that wasn't the best view of the city (My uncle lives in Lake Point Tower and WOW the view is incredible), I just had dozed off (I wasn't driving) and woke up to see the Sears Tower looming over me. So I just whipped out the camera and tried to take a few shots before failing. I may actually take that detour next trip since I wasn't even thinking about how awesome Chicago looks this time.

Oh yeah, I remember the highway construction. It was a pain in the neck to get through, and we were about a half hour late for our performance at Woodland Middle. It's like the I-64 project here in St. Louis, it screws up the traffic pattern. Well, at least it wasn't like our Louisville trip where we got stuck trying to get through a marathon for an hour and a half.

[Coasterkidmwm]

BTW American Eagle does not hurt at all compared to lots of other rides. I miss Shockwave

Never rode it. [:(]

I hated Shockwave from the day it opened. If it wasn't beating me, it was boring me. Unfortunately, I find it's replacement pretty boring also.

Yeah I never got a chance to ride Shockwave because I was too short until about 2003....and it had already been scrapped.

Nice pictures. I like that place. For some reason, I remember riding Raging Bull with no trims. I didn't feel trims hit, and I definitely felt like I was going full speed. So much ejection air on my ride... And I'm very surprised you liked Iron Wolf. Last time I rode it, it felt like it was 50 years old and ready to clang-clang its way to bits and pieces. It wasn't that fun, except for the one hill or drop off or something that got sick negative g's. Also, personally, Superman is so fun. The pretzel loop is completely incredible; I've never felt anything like that. As I've said in the past numerous times, that pretzel loop is quite possibly one of my favorite parts of any roller coaster I've ever been on.

Again, nice pictures with that cam.

^Yeah same here with the pretzel loop, that feeling is just so bizarre. And with Iron Wolf, for me just the pacing and layout were spectacular. I've always had a fascination with older stand-up coasters for some reason (like the Intamins and TOGOs from the 80s), and this ride just fit in with those.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Shockwave was great until you finished the three loops because it was a positive G bonanza.

You missed a trashcan, there's 16.

Where?

And there's only one recycle bin.

Oh, I guess he could have meant that or the cigarette bin.

How many trash cans do you need? The small Six Flags near my house has one treash can per mile of path. Absolutely no recycling either

Great TR!

Those are some pretty cool photos.

I agree with you on Raging Bull.

Originally posted by kooliokid

How many trash cans do you need? The small Six Flags near my house has one treash can per mile of path. Absolutely no recycling either

And which Six Flags is that exactly?

Beautiful Pictures.

Wow I pity Six Flags. I went to two of their parks and they weren't clean. But they don't have to overkill with the trash cans lol.

Great TR