I had been burned too many times before. Despite being a struggling company that was forced to enter bankruptcy protection earlier this year, every single time I’ve been to a Six Flags park I was under the impression that they had more crowds than they could handle. Just last year we encountered such miserably large crowds on an early June weekday with the temps approaching 100F at Six Flags Great Adventure, that we had to form an escape plan to get out of a second day trapped in the park. The worst scenario was back in August 2005 when we visited Six Flags Great America on a Saturday… upon leaving the park we asked a supervisor if the park had reached capacity (there was no way the midways couldn’t have been a fire hazard as they were) and he simply laughed and told us this was easy compared to several days they had in previous years.

Sunday of Labor Day weekend didn’t seem like it would be too crowded, but this time I wasn’t taking any chances. We’d be getting a Flash Pass. Prices at Six Flags Great America were lower than at other large parks in the chain; I remember considering getting one back at Great Adventure but we’d have had to shell out over $60 for barely an 8-hour day. Here, they were more reasonably priced at about $39 for a two person unit, about the same as a single-day admission ticket (checking their website just now apparently they’ve bumped up the prices to $65 for two).

There does seem to be a slight ethical question behind these virtual queuing systems. Ride throughput will be the same regardless in a single day, so the park doesn’t give anything up by allowing Flash Pass users to ride without waiting. Instead, the burden is supported by the rest of the park visitors using the regular queue; every seat that goes to a Flash Pass user is one ‘revoked’ from a regular user. So the ‘cost’ of this service is paid for by regular park visitors (reflected in longer lines and lower average ticket value) while the park receives the profits despite giving up nothing of value to them (besides provide the system overhead). That’s called profiteering.

To that I say: screw ethics. I loved my Flash Pass. I’ll be willing to justify its ethical use by claiming the added enjoyment experienced by me through its use far outweighed the aggregate loss experienced by everyone that didn’t have it, and if the park is making more money off people impatient to stand in line that hopefully can be used in ways that will improve the experience for all guests such as increased capital expansions or better staffed attractions.

First I had to pick up our Flash Pass so I could start programming attractions in right away. I thought the building would be right within the carousel entry plaza (the voucher said it was on the right after entering the park), but I couldn’t find it. Asking a supervisor I found out it was way back inside the park near the Whizzer, in the complete opposite direction I wanted to go to start the day. I made sure to hurry as soon as the chains dropped, and found when I got there that somehow a large group of people had gotten there before me. The park didn’t appear that busy, and picking it up was a relatively painless process. The one catch was you had to leave your driver’s license (or some other important form of identification) behind at their offices the entire day until you returned it. Okay, I understand the need for some collateral when renting this stuff out but this felt more than a little uncomfortable to me; isn’t simply having your credit card number on account more than sufficient?

As I programmed Batman: The Ride as the first attraction on my Flash Pass, my mom and I made our way back around half of the park to do the Ragin’ Cajun, which was the only other coaster beside American Eagle not on the Flash Pass system so I wanted to get there before the lines got too long. I had heard that due to blocking problems this was incapable or running more than three cars at a time for a number of years. I don’t have a way of verifying this (other than this 2004 RCDb photo showing just one car on the main circuit and a very long line; anyone out there know?) but it seems like it was corrected, as there were at least five or six cars on the track, and the twenty or so people ahead of us were moved through in just a couple minutes.

These always make for fun rides, and I appreciate that the dual switchback sections help make for a longer ride time while not sacrificing any fun. There’s still something a bit odd about having such a low-end production model ride, usually sold to small parks or carnival operators, in a large regional Six Flags park. There’s a nice façade and it fits with the Mardi Gras theme (although they also have two “Raging” coasters in their park), and now that the capacity has been boosted I think it fits well with the likes of Whizzer for a family friendly but still interesting-for-everyone type of coaster.

After that we were off to do Batman: The Ride. We had to do a bit of searching to find the Flash Pass entry, it was tucked around the back side past the exit. I found out that A): the merge point with the regular line was way back on the lower level queue area, not exactly what I call front of the line access. However, B): no one was there yet, so we probably would have had a faster time just using the regular queue because it was walk-on for all seats but the front at that time of day anyway. The review of the ride itself is in its own article, but I’d like to point out that both trains had one of the front row seats taped off so everyone in line that was in a group of two or four (read: everyone in line, period.) ended up riding between two trains instead of fitting onto one. Later in the day, when we were pulling the restraints down for a front seat ride, all of them stopped functioning, so we had to wait for train two while the rest of the front row were roped off for the rest of the day. Five of eight front row seats closed off, that’s not indicative of good maintenance.

Next I programmed in V2: Vertical Velocity. It told me to come back in 15 minutes, so I had to spend a couple moments hanging around Batman grabbing some pictures. I got there and found it still had a couple walk-on seats available anyway. Where was this Six Flags back in 2005 when we didn’t have Flash Passes and I remember waiting two hours for this thing? My mom isn’t a fan of Wicked Twister at Cedar Point and there was no real reason she’d like V2 any better so she stayed off it. I picked out a seat three from the back row that was still empty. I had my camera with me so I could get some shots from the station, and thankfully the park has abandoned their ludicrously zealous “every loose item must go in a locker policy” as most coasters had a small grid-like shelf with cubbies just large enough to fit sandals, sunglasses or, in my case, a camera. Problem #1: being that it covers such a small area in one side of the station, it was a bit of a mess with everyone trying to get their things, and probably slowed load times more than just having the standard, full-sized cubbies along the entire station. Problem #2: when I finally got my camera stowed and made my way back to the rear of the train, I found that two homeboys had taken residence in my seat. “Umm, excuse me, I was sitting there, I just needed to put my camera away…” Since the gates had already closed, one of them just had to get off to the exit platform, while I got to ride with someone who probably wasn’t thrilled the person sitting next to him wasn’t Steve.

I’ve never cared much for these Impulse coasters and I’m glad Intamin quit making them after enough had been produced by 2004. They feel more like a flat ride than a coaster. Going up the front tower we just barely made it into the twist, which didn’t do anything except bang my ears a bit. The back is alright as a straight tower, it’s basically just a less-exciting drop ride. They didn’t have the magnetic brake on, which might have been a good thing since falling forward into the restraints isn’t really comfortable, although it’s the main difference between this and Wicked Twister’s spiraling back tower, so I was mildly looking forward to a new change.

We hit Iron and American Eagle next, and before getting an early lunch I made a quick stop at Looney Tunes National Park so I could get a quick ride on the Spacely’s Sprocket Rockets, one of three coasters at the park I had never been on (others being Ragin’ Cajun and Dark Knight). If this hadn’t been an extremely light year for me in terms of new coasters tried (I only just visited a park I never had been to before the previous day at the soon-to-close Kiddieland), I probably wouldn’t have bothered, but I felt like I needed every new coaster I could get. This is the basic small model of Roller Skaters from Vekoma, the same as the Shake, Rattle ‘n’ Roller Coaster at the former Hard Rock Park, and as far as Junior coasters go they’re not too bad, but I think given their short ride time they ought to allow for two circuits.

We ate at the Moose Burger Lodge; I’m not sure if the themeing of this place is supposed to recall a non-licensed Rocky and Bullwinkle, or perhaps NL Vacation’s Wally World, but inside I found probably the best Six Flags food offerings I ever had. The beef brisket sandwich: get it. Okay, it wasn’t anything special if you’ve been to a real smokehouse, but it actually tasted like real food (you know, with flavor and everything), a surprise for a Six Flags park. And while the price wasn’t a steal of a lifetime, the full meal it included made it particularly reasonable, especially considering it filled me up so well I wasn’t able to finish it all. The moral of the story is… not much, besides if you’re at Six Flags Great America, I hope you like barbeque, since Moose Burger Lodge is probably your best bet for a meal. On the whole, food at amusement parks is still mostly cardboard and ketchup, but they seem to be figuring out how to do barbeque well (basically they use a lot of barbeque sauce to cover it up), and just as long as I’m not doing a trip that has five Six Flags parks in a row I should be fine with just that as a culinary option.

While we were eating I reserved a ride on The Dark Knight, which I noticed had a wait time listed for 50 minutes. Finally, my Flash Pass was getting some use. The version at Great Adventure wasn’t that great, and I must say, neither was Great America’s. There were some minor differences; Great America’s is better integrated, being right next to Superman it makes a neat little superhero corner, and with the box back behind Superman only the entry structure is visible which doesn’t make it an eyesore for the park. The queue was also all indoors (not that we needed to use it, we got to cut right into being the first into the pre-show room), but then the indoor section of the queue after the preshow was a bit more barren of themeing. It’s bad designing having a preshow that’s supposed to get everyone excited, only to have another ten minute wait before they actually board the cars.

The coaster itself, well, I have a hard time rating it. There was a bit more themeing on the interior than I remembered (actually they might have added more over the 08/09 off-season), but overall it was still much too bright in there, and a strobe light flashing on a 4-foot tall Batman figurine isn’t going to get more cool with time. One added effect that did get me was there was some sort of special effect that sprayed us with a few cold drops of water I wasn’t anticipating. And for a wild mouse, this is a pretty good attraction. Most mice hit their turns really hard but this one had some sort of shock system that let us glide through the curves without the hard entry and exit, and the brakes were mostly all off that meant a pretty fast ride. Still, the self-importance found along the edges of the ride makes me want to downgrade it compared to if it had just been a standard Wild Mouse. If you don’t have a Flash Pass, I might recommend Ragin’ Cajun before this one.

Since Superman was right next door I wanted to book that one next, but that one also had a 50-minute wait so we spent the time looking around the gift shops, and also hit both the Condor and the Sky Tower. Condors are always welcome in an amusement park, and like their namesake they seem to becoming a rarity these days. The Sky Tower was basically just a photo session. In fact, for me, so was the Condor, although do not expect to get any halfway decent shots of Superman when you’re spinning at 20 RPM. I also want to mention, although I didn’t go on it, there was an impressively detailed bumper car building next door called Rue Le Dodge. Easily the nicest and most sophisticated I’ve ever seen for a bumper car, and at a Six Flags park, surprisingly.

That’s not fair. While it’s always fun to make jokes about the concrete qualities found at Six Flags parks, I’ve found that they’ve started to become an bit of enthusiast dogma that has less truth to it than it used to. Considering how dense the park is and the fact it was built on a vacant plot of land next to a highway back in the 1970’s, Six Flags Great America is positively one of the greenest parks that isn’t Busch Gardens in the country. Just look at the area surrounding Whizzer. When it was built, it looked like this. Even the Iron Wolf, a compact Beemer, is practically a terrain coaster in places. Huge thickets of vegetation grow between the rides, and there are plenty of efforts to landscape along the midways as well. Even the themeing is above-average. Rue Le Dodge, as I already mentioned, plus the newer Mardi Gras corner, and the Southwest Territory is extremely impressive. However, I think most of these attributes in the park came before the Premier takeover in 1998, Raging Bull being a transitional ride between the two management styles. The reason Six Flags Great America might come off as a more pleasant park than some of its contemporaries is the fact that Premier Parks didn’t do much with it after Raging Bull… just the inverted duo back in 2001 (one of which is now removed and the other has a small footprint fitted neatly into a corner of the park), and Superman, which took the place of another parking lot coaster anyway. Originally it was supposed to be built in the Whizzer’s spot until there was a huge public outcry against dismantling the crowd favorite. I can’t imagine how much worse off the park would be today if they had gone through with that, and not just for the loss of the Whizzer, but for the loss of all the scenery that’s grown up around it and gives the park a peaceful “heart” of sorts.

They did retheme one area of the park into the Mardi Gras area in 2004, which was a bit of a surprise for them (and actually predicted a surprise slew of well-themed, well-integrated attractions in their last two years, including Kingda Ka, Tatsu and El Toro.) The new Six Flags management has made some attempts at themeing, although most of these are less about evoking a time and place and more about evoking certain licensing opportunities. As long as they think the Wiggles are a good thing that should be made a staple of all their parks, I will forever regard the new management’s capital decisions with one raised eyebrow. I also have to question the extravagant levels of advertising throughout the park. I understand their need to get out of debt by signing with as many brand partners as possible, but some of this stuff is becoming rampant, in-your-face commercialism. Miracle Whip ads were everywhere (on the Space Shuttle, as full banners covering the Iron Wolf station…) and a newly added LED screen above the railroad overhead crossing turned what had been a pleasant walkway between sections of the park into an obnoxious ad-fest. Going back that way at night, the LEDs were so bright in contrast with the darkness around the park it hurt to look at it. Hopefully once they come out of bankruptcy they’ll tone some of this stuff down a little, although unless guests start complaining I don’t think there’d be much motivation to do so. Some people apparently don’t mind this stuff; I do. They’re not just tacky, they set the wrong tone for what a day at a theme park is supposed to be. They tell me I am nothing but a consumer to them, equally susceptible to dazzle in the forms of brightly colored rides or brightly colored advertisements. I am in the hands of profit-motivated firms only interested in my own wellbeing to the extent that it motivates me to spend more. That isn’t even really true; technically, all businesses are that way, and if asking any of the managers or executives personally I’m sure they would have a genuine personal interest in making families happy, but as a parkgoer this sort of stuff always rubs me the wrong way. Honestly, if I had to choose between only visiting Cedar Fair parks and only visiting Six Flags parks, my decision would have been a close one but the strong consumerist flavor found all over Great America rubbed me the wrong way and I rather longed to get back to the generic vanilla look of Kings Island, where even if the rides are given the most off-the-shelf names and color schemes, at least they don’t have Listerine logos everywhere.

Crowds picked up to just the perfect level later in the day; I was able to use my Flash Pass so I was constantly moving from one ride to another, and in the few cases where I did have a bit of a wait between attractions, there was always a flat ride nearby I could quickly hop on. Some of the other rides sampled included King Chaos (HUSS Top Spin), the Orbit (Schwarzkopf Enterprise), Giant Drop (Intamin 2nd Gen. Freefall Tower) and the Yankee Clipper (Arrow Flume ride). King Chaos started with some promising, delivering a very dizzying five front flips in a row, but then that was it, the rest was just some pointless noodling around with the program. The Orbit is great fun, these have always been some of my favorite rides. The display of centripetal force is great here, being taken around a 360 degree vertical loop without any sort of restraints in the cars. Giant Drop was competent enough drop tower. Not particularly thrilling anymore compared to the 200-300 ft. creations that sprung up several years after this one was built, but with six faces to the tower it has a decent capacity, and the queue and surrounding area is brilliantly done, taking place throughout an intricately constructed sandstone (aka, painted cement) canyon. It’s almost enough to forgive the name, which is still better than what Cedar Fair could come up with. The small footprint tucked in the corner of the Southwest Territory next to Raging Bull keep it humble, like it’s just another flat ride, but it’s very good for a better than average thrill, especially if you’re looking to kill ten minutes before your Flash Pass signals it’s your time for Raging Bull. We did the Yankee Clipper later in the day as I was waiting for a second Superman time to come up, and in retrospect that probably wasn’t the best idea given the chilly weather. It’s just a log flume, how wet can we get? After going over the big plunge, I saw at the bottom of the drop there was something kicking up a huge amount of the fast moving water, which our boat blasted through. I was sitting in front and made a last-second decision to duck, which had most of the water fly right over my head and land right on my mother, who spent the rest of the evening cold and miserable, but trying not to show it too much as she didn’t want to spoil my fun. I love my mom.

It was probably a good thing we didn’t try their new for 2009 attraction, Buccaneer Battle. It’s another surprisingly competent attempt at themeing an attraction, although I’m not certain it matches well with surrounding area (was this intended for the water park?) Regardless, from what I saw the kids seemed to really love it, and this was on a cool, overcast September evening. However, I’m not sure if I respect these “River Battle” attractions as rides. For one, they’re very flat, so while the themeing might be nice, unless you’re standing right next to it, it’s hard to notice and adds very little to the park’s ambiance. Furthermore, the boats are very slow-moving, and there’s really nothing they do except pass by fountains and other water devices. With the compact footprint that makes it less derivative of a rapids style water ride and more closely related to an interactive water fountain you have to wait in line for. As long as it’s high capacity and keeps the crowds satisfied on hot days I won’t begrudge the park too much for replacing the low-capacity Déjà Vu with it, but as a water ride, it’s rather ineffectual.

In total, I got thirty-five rides in on eighteen different attractions, by far a record for me at any Six Flags park. Part of it was the Flash Pass, part of it was the lower crowds over the cool Labor Day weekend, part of it was sheer determination to do as much as I could after a full summer with extremely few visits to parks I had not already been to within the last year or so. It was easily the best visit to a Six Flags park I’ve ever had, and am more optimistic about the next time I might visit another one in their chain. Just as long as they don’t get arrogant with their Flash Pass pricing.

For detailed reviews of the park’s major attractions, see below:

Batman: The Ride

A dialectic runs through my head over whether or not I think Batman is one of B&M’s finest inverted coasters, or simply a scaled-back practice outing that they would later refine and build upon. One part of me (we’ll say it’s my right brain) keeps saying, “Of course it is! This is by far their tightest design ever made for an inverted coaster, back before they became too dependent on force readouts and still made coasters with some kick to them. Everything else after this design was compromised by taller heights and faster speeds… ergo, more controlled forces and slower timing between elements. It might be small and short, but it’s non-stop and packs one of the most aggressive punches Bolliger & Mabillard ever have – or will – pull.”

But then the other half of my brain (the left hemisphere) chimes in, “Don’t get too sentimental. While the design of the elements might be tight, that’s only to be canceled out by the extra-small scale and speed. The ride time is short as well, and while it might not be a bad coaster, there are plenty of other inverts built after it that are much more ambitious. The only reason it’s been duplicated so many times is because it’s small, cheap and easily accessible for lazy parks that don’t feel like taking any risks with their design.”

I have more sympathy towards the right hemisphere of my brain, since the left’s argument basically boils down to “bigger is better; clones are bad”, which can easily be defeated. That said, I’ve been on my fair share of Batmen before (Magic Mountain, Over Georgia, Great Adventure, and Illinois’ own original), and out of my one or two rides on each of those park visits I was never able to glean much from those prior experiences, which I would partially attribute to the simple struggle to survive a day in a Six Flags park, with all the long lines and dehydration that normally entails. But I should have a stronger opinion of the coaster by now, so maybe my left brain is correct, and I’m simply transferring my sentimentality for other pre-1998 B&M coasters onto this design. Crowds aren’t too bad, and even still I have a Flash Pass in my pocket, so today should be a good day to settle this debate.

First major ride of the day after Ragin’ Cajun, in the front row, ascending the lift; we reach the crest and skirt down the pre-drop before sharply twisting around and down. The tight twisting is quite cool, haven’t quite had anything like that on a B&M coaster in a while, but I’m also struck by how short this drop is, pulling up what looks like twenty feet above ground-level when it’s already not much more than 100ft. tall. The first loop is tight and intense, but it also seems to just blow through it really fast rather than provide the dizzyingly quick fore-and-aft rotational forces I was expecting. What that means is, picture yourself doing a front-flip on a bungee trampoline: flipping around your axis in one second will feel much more intense than if it takes three, even though there’s technically no added g-forces involved between either scenarios.

We pull up, into the zero-g roll (this was the first ever built). Again, in terms of timing it’s very quick, but I still seem to be missing the tight rotational g-forces. The rolling movement is much more sudden on this than on later versions where they would lead into it more on the incline. There’s also a bit of a ‘snap’ to the roll right at the inverting point, adding a bit extra unpredictability and intensity. Wasting no time, we’re diving back down to set up vertical loop number two, basically a carbon copy of the first and provides not much in the way of new sensations, but creates a nice, all straight-forward loop/roll/loop progression that constitutes the first half of the experience before it switches into the turn-based second half.

We slide hard around an upward left helix diminishes in force. There’s no midcourse brake run on the ride, but in some ways it still nearly feels like it because the high above the ground transition from left to right curve acts as half a placeholder. It’s alright though, because this is one of the best places on the ride to appreciate the inverted set-up (particularly important if the year is 1992) and we get a good build-up as we dive to the right, almost like a second first drop, into the first flat-spin. We tightly whip around to the right without losing momentum before diving into a trench and continuing up into the second corkscrewing flat-spin. This combo of inversion/turn/inversion neatly mirrors the first loop/roll/loop progression that was on the opposite side of the high turn transition midpoint, and is also easily the most nimble the train gets. The final left turn starts out with some vigor but finishes weak as a denouement of sorts so the brake run that comes less than 40 seconds after cresting the lift doesn’t feel so unexpected.

However, at the end of each of these rides, my right brain had to make a few concessions to my left brain; that while the quick timing between elements is there, by itself that doesn’t accomplish as much as I wish it could. I was hard-pressed to feel much extra rotational intensity from the extra-small elements, they were simply that: extra small. In many ways the ride reminds me perfectly of a mini-Raptor, with similar element sequencing and progression, just smaller, slower and over quicker. That’s hardly a bad thing, as Batman is still a great ride. It’s just I couldn’t find anything in its smallness to elevate it above the larger counterparts such as Raptor, it’s only a lesser brother to those rides.

Now, I’m not going to declare anything definitive just yet, because my experiences came mostly from morning rides on a cool day, so the fact that the ride paced even comparably to Raptor is quite amazing. I’ve heard reports from people about how their local Batman ride used to go so fast on a hot summer night it looked physically dangerous from off-ride. I didn’t get those rides, so I can’t comment, but as long as someone qualifies that they did get to experience it when it was running that fast I wouldn’t have a problem if they claim it one of B&M’s best.

An added feature that I really liked about Six Flags Great America’s version is in the second half there were some extremely close calls with nearby trees and shrubs. Particularly on the descent down into the first corkscrew and immediately after the second on the final turn, the plant life nearly completely enfolds the trains on all sides, not only heightening the sense of speed but just making for an astonishing visual effect. Someone tall enough might even be able to kick some of the branches if they really reach for it. I don’t believe any other Batman layout has anything quite as confrontational; combined with the more natural setting that fits with the park, I think this first Batman probably is the best of all the versions ever manufactured since it’s debut.

Superman: Ultimate Flight

The park’s other inverted superhero themed coaster in many ways recalls its predecessor while in other ways offering the completely opposite experience. Batman is gritty and intense and based on quick variations in the layout, while Superman is graceful and slower paced, based on creating a singular flight sensation, and quite honestly it’s all a tad boring. It’s probably no surprise then that most enthusiasts (myself included) would take Batman over Superman any day of the week. That said there is more to justify the “Superman Experience” than I originally would have admitted, but what’s there still isn’t quite enough to justify any two-hour waits. I speak from experience, as the longest I ever waited for a roller coaster was this ride back in 2005 at nearly three and a half hours (there might have been longer lines in Millennium Force’s opening year but I can’t recall the specifics).

Also, Superman nearly justifies the expense of the Flash Pass all by itself. The queue is pretty much always the longest in the park, and the ride is the lowest capacity in the park except for the wild mice and maybe the Whizzer, although Superman is probably tied for popularity with Raging Bull so it’s a much larger draw. The merge point is right up in the station, so you can skip by a couple hours’ long wait in about a minute (minus the time waiting for your reservation time, however, but I’m fairly confident the actual queue length was longer than the 50 minutes our Flash Pass made us wait before boarding).

The flying experience really transforms the ride experience in more ways than one might at first anticipate. Pretty much every g-force you feel is redirected by 90 degrees, creating new directional forces we rarely if ever get to experience on a coaster, i.e. forward and backward forces are normally only felt on launches and brake runs; maybe spinning coasters. In none of those situations are the g-forces derived from gravitational conflicts either, giving a unique vocabulary to the styles of sensations on this coaster.

On the other hand I’ve still not been entirely sold on the ‘flying’ as a valid one. The main reason is that when we imagine what it would feel like to free-fly, zero-gravity is generally assumed. That’s obviously not possible to sustain, so with the constant pull of gravity experienced that fairly well kills any real flying sensation, and that’s not including the restrictive restraints in the equation. Actually they are quite comfortable, but the fact is resting on your chest is not a very natural way to ride the coaster.

Then there’s the layout. Maybe it’s just me but if I could fly like Superman, I wouldn’t zig-zag over the same cleared field, I’d go places, over and under things, stuff like that. Every seat has an unrestricted view, and yet the park doesn’t capitalize on this at all, the uniform mowed lawn it’s built on only broken up by the same blue supports and the occasional queue line that everyone wonders if someone will throw up on them as they pass overhead.

Also, in terms of progression, it’s rather awkward. The initial pretzel loop easily stands alone as a completely unique defining moment of the ride. The dynamics are unlike anything else, so when it comes right at the beginning of the layout it makes the rest of the coaster look boring by contrast. Airtime at the top, strong positives at the bottom (and remember these are all skewed by 90 degress so it’s a particularly wacky brand of airtime as it presses forward on your chest instead of up from underneath), plus the rapidly changing orientation to the ground that has us in a kamikaze dive upside down… it’s a great element, probably the most impressive single maneuver inside Great America’s gates.

After that, layout, elements, pacing and progression all get shoved out the door in favor of a somewhat idyllic series of turns that don’t accomplish anything other than give a unified sensation of flying for several seconds. From a designer’s perspective, this track is pretty simple; I was looking at it from the station and realized most of the curves were based on simple geometric shapes and parabolic contours, nothing more advanced or intricate, with very long transitions. This section of the ride is over rather quickly as well, only about 22 seconds before the free-flight is over and we’re wrapping it up with the final inline roll into the brakes.

By the way, here’s an interesting debate I’m not sure I’ve ever seen had: does this final roll count as an inversion? By most accounts, yes, the track clearly rotates a complete 360 degrees. But what about from the rider’s perspective? They’re never held heels over head, their body length is always kept parallel to the ground, it just rotates around the front axis. Something fundamental about the nature of an ‘inversion’ seems to be denied with that. Yet it also would seem absurd to not call it an inversion, when the track is shaped nearly identical to other heartline rolls and in-line twists on standard, upright coasters, so why should those elemental properties change just when a particular train design is on them instead? Food for thought…

Iron Wolf

This was my favorite ride back in 2005. I suspect its unpopularity with the rest of the park guests (resulting in by far the shortest lines of the day) had something to do with it. But I also liked the layout of the coaster much more, and I never had any problems with roughness or head banging. It’s a tight, curved based layout that’s deceptively longer than it looks, and despite being a compact B&M coaster, it’s old enough that the trees around it have grown in really well and almost feels like a terrain coasters at times in the second half. While some people saw stand-up trains as a gimmick that rightfully needed to die before the turn of the millennium, I personally feel that they add a considerable amount to the ride experience, not that I’d like many more coasters to have them. The body is much more vulnerable to g-forces making the ride more intense, and stretching our center of gravity up higher and affected by a longer span produces some interesting dynamics not experienced on sit-down coasters; as you go around a loop or over a drop on one of these things, recall that concept of torque from your high school physics class…

There’s also the roughness that a lot of people take issue with. I hear this about a lot of coasters, and I don’t understand much of any of it. When I hear people flaming a coaster in online message boards about how it cracked their spine in two and caused cranial hemorrhaging, and then I ride it and don’t have any problems whatsoever, I have been led to believe one of three conclusions:

1): That I am very lucky that I always get to ride rough coasters on their one ‘good’ day out of the year.

2): That most enthusiast’s skeletal structures are made out of Crispix.

3): That I am a masochist without realizing it.

While generally I like to believe hypothesis #2, after my five rides in a row on Iron Wolf that day (yes, in a row…) and being generally pulverized by the restraints and bad shuffling in the wheel assemblies on each and every cycle, I might have to consider #3 more carefully in the future.

It wasn’t this rough back in 2005, which is a shame because the added roughness did diminish my enjoyment of the ride considerably. It was worst on the first drop, some of the curving dives in the first half, and the corkscrew, and generally much stronger in the back rows and on the edges; my one ride in the front and center row was by far the smoothest. Yet as I confessed, I still went around and did it four more times throughout the day knowing full well what I was in store for.

Maybe it was just that I knew how to brace for it properly, so as I was subjected to all the jostling I was able to avoid taking any ‘fatal blows’, allowing me to climb off it in perfect condition but weary of all the work I had to put in to stay that way, which is a better adrenaline rush and scare factor than all the uber-controlled coasters that try to feign intimidation, i.e. Top Thrill Dragster and the like.

And it’s still a good layout, altering between slower, more graceful moments I could let my guard down, and faster, more intense moments I had to physically and psychologically prepare for lest I get the crap beat out of me. In terms of layout, it’s probably my favorite of all the early B&M stand-ups, much more convoluted and with hidden layers of twists and turns in the finale, overall a stronger emphasis on multitudes of direction changes and a complex layout than later designs that started splitting the coasters up into fewer ‘big moment’ elements. Plus, as I mentioned, the surroundings add a lot too, with plenty of trees that perfectly fit the ride theme, a sort of symbiotic mix between the rustic and the industrial. Although I was still relieved whenever we finally got to the brake run.

Iron Wolf probably has its days numbered, especially with the rumors that Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom’s Chang will be relocated here in 2011. That’s appropriate, since the ride is a bit too small for the park these days, and that back corner needs some revitalization as hardly anyone makes it back there anymore. Besides, I’d hate to see the stand-up concept leave the park after all this time, so it’s a fitting upgrade. And Iron Wolf should be relocated to another park in the chain, since while 1990 might seem ancient for a B&M coaster, it’s still quite young compared to other steel coasters that have been relocated, and would make a great fit at a place like Six Flags Mexico, Six Flags America or some other park that needs a new steel coaster but doesn’t have a complete budget for one.

Raging Bull

I’m not sure which of Great America’s B&M Quartet is my personal favorite but I think Raging Bull is easily their most ambitious. Unfortunately, that infers that it also must be the one with the most holding it back from the greatness it could be. In this case, quite literally “holding it back”. Two words:

Trim.

Brake.

Ah, I’m foreshadowing too much. First, what is there to like about Raging Bull? Plenty. For starters (and this may be an unpopular opinion) but I personally feel that, at least theoretically, Raging Bull has one of the best layouts ever seen on a B&M speed coaster, perhaps tied only with Apollo’s Chariot. I see a lot more of the attention to layout detailing found on their older rides than all the post-Nitro stuff where it was just about building the same damn camelbacks and turns over and over again. It seems ever since Magnum started the trend, every hyper coaster built has to be entirely airtime based, and built around some variation of an out-and-back layout (if not directly in the plotting, then at least in the spirit of having the hills being the showcase elements with turns randomly inserted as completely disparate elements from the hills). True hyper-twisters are extremely hard to come by; Kings Dominion’s Intimidator 305 may be the closest yet to that ideal, and the Giovanola hypers are probably the next closest thing (in the U.S., at least). Raging Bull was clearly the inspiration for those two, but blends more of the traditional airtime/straight maneuvers with a twistery layout, and in my opinion if it would just run like it’s supposed to it would strike a perfect balance between the two.

Like every other B&M speed coaster, the seating and restraints are the most comfortable and unrestrictive ever devised for a modern steel coaster, the tipped back seats lifting feet off the floor helping to establish a tremendous sensation of freedom while on the ride. The station also beats other similar rides with similar themes (*cough*kingsisland*cough*), actually recalling a southwestern mission church rather than simply being one of the contractor’s prefab steel sheds with wooden paneling nailed in at crooked angles. And from off-ride, Raging Bull actually does some justice to surrounding area; an intimidating presence in the park, to be sure, but it doesn’t dominate the midways and distract attention from the other rides and themed locales. It’s there just a few feet off to the side, impossibly tall and larger than life (probably helped by the fact that you can’t see the footers) but quiet enough that the full impact of its presence doesn’t hit you unless you look it straight in the eyes. The orange track with magenta supports and jet black trains are an original paint combination, not gaudy like the trademark Cedar Fair bright red/yellow, but still attention grabbing, highlighting both the Southwestern inspiration and the technological sheen at the same time. The three, 36 passenger trains cycle through the station with considerable speed, making Raging Bull perhaps the only coaster truly suitable to handle the Great American sized crowds.

The first drop is probably my favorite on any B&M speed coaster. The pre-drop section gives a moment to savor the heights and the slight increase in speed off the lift gives the ride a moment to ‘get into gear’ before flooring it with the first drop, if you understand what I’m saying. Then there’s the crest into the 208 ft. drop itself, because of the faster speed from the pre-drop and the fact it has a sharper pull over due to the absence of the lift mechanisms really jolts one out of their seat if they’re sitting in the back, and the front’s not bad either. This isn’t a quick moment of sharp ejector air either, it’s sustained as mild-ejector for the couple seconds it takes to reach the pullout at the bottom, something very few first drops are able to accomplish. Then there’s the underground tunnel at the bottom, which is rare for a B&M (especially their speed coasters) and really helps highlight the sense of speed at the bottom, which can sometimes be a hard thing to judge when the trains run so smoothly. I could probably rate this first drop as one of my top ten favorites. Unfortunately this is probably the best the ride ever has going for it, so enjoy this element while it lasts.

Actually the next turn is a nice maneuver as well. Some people dislike it because it’s rather drawn out and not particularly overbanked like the hammerhead maneuvers on Nitro or Diamondback, but I like the shaping to it, how it’s made of three parts, the twisting crest into, the flat turn at top that pushes the positives a bit, then free-falling back down with another rotational twist out of the curve. It all gives a better sense of space and changing directionality than those other turnarounds, even if it is rather slow paced and not particularly aggressive.

We surge back up, crossing over the first drop into what should be the ride’s really big airtime centerpiece moment. Instead, we are unexpectedly thrown forward into our restraints as those nefarious trim brakes clobber our train’s forward momentum. We spend the rest of the hill sitting firmly in our seats, trying to pretend the 0.5 g-forces felt from the descending acceleration on the way down is actual 0-g airtime. It gets worse from here. The next hill, a steeply banked camelback hill, has the potential to be quite awesome, perhaps one of the most daring moments on a B&M speed coaster. There’s not too much inward curvature so in theory it could sustain close to 0 g’s like a regular camelback, only we’d be tipped completely on our sides, creating a rather bizarre disjuncture between sight (extreme) and sensation (relaxed). However, because we’re going so much slower than the design intended, I found myself in a very uncomfortable position as everyone in the train was sliding in their seats down to the left, ironically creating probably the most extreme laterals ever experienced on a B&M speed coaster.

This is a problem. Why is that trim brake on so hard? The two reasons normally associated for their use (less stress on track/train and controlling the experience for riders) actually have the reverse effects in this case. For riders, both the sudden jolt forward into the seats from the sudden slowdown in speed, and this next hill which puts stress on an awkward position on the left side of the waist from the way the seats are designed. And as far as maintenance is concerned, I can only imagine the frictional wear down on the braking and undercarriage components costs them something over time. Plus I read recently that the train vallied in the figure-eight during a test run on a rather cool day, and fishing out a vallied train, especially a heavy one like Raging Bull’s, I can’t imagine is anything the maintenance department enjoys having called in.

Anyway, so next we pull back up into the other bookending turnaround, this one similar to the first but tighter and crossing over itself on the way out. Some people might complain that the layout wastes too much on these unnecessary turning maneuvers (I recall I had a similar complaint for Diamondback) but in the context of the ride I appreciate that these multiple changes in direction keep the layout feeling longer and more involved than if it were kept much simpler. I think of Raging Bull as having an actual layout, rather than a plot of land that a couple camelback hills can be fit on before they have to turn around after just one or two.

We climb up into the midcourse brake, which mercifully was very light, letting this final section of the ride still have a bit of a pulse. Airtime for those of you in the back (the back is easily the best place to ride on this coaster if you haven’t guessed already) off the midcourse dive, and then again on the subsequent bunny hop. We make our way around a partial uphill helix, appearing for a moment to run out of momentum, but then are met with a dive all the way down to ground level that causes the speedometer to kick up again.

Again, some people don’t like this last part but I do. Raging Bull ends with a figure-eight finale, mixed with a few slight rises and minor drops, but for the most part the pace is kept more consistently fast here, always charging into each turn unlike the contrasting dynamics between fast and stalling out that normally come with the bunny hill string as a finale. And this is actually something of a finale. The other speed coasters just end with more of the same, maybe some individual drop or bunny hill that feels a bit more definitive than the rest, but here with the continuous pacing that also contrasts with the rest of the ride experience I actually get something out of this finale, even if it’s not airtime or other sorts of g-forces. I do wish they could have been a bit more daring with some of the transitions here, however, perhaps to be made more like Mantis’ extremely tight figure-eight finale. Regardless it’s a unique close to a unique hyper coaster.

I sincerely believe that if they would just turn off the trim brakes and let the damn thing actually carry some g-forces (at least that aren’t unintentional), Raging Bull could be one of B&M’s best efforts. As it rides right now, however, I’m just too… frustrated… whenever I ride it, always keenly aware of how slow every element is taken and how the ride at nearly any given moment could and should be better than it is. Maybe they’re just a seasonal thing and people out there still on a regular basis get trimless rides that show the potential this ride really has. That’s the only reason I can think of for this ride’s #14 placement in the most recent Golden Ticket Awards, outranking even rides like Maverick (well, besides the fact that a cumulative point system will alway show bias towards more well known coasters at popular parks).

Between the four of these rides, I honestly would have a hard time choosing a favorite after this visit. I could make a case for each Raging Bull, Iron Wolf and Batman… sorry to any Superman fans, but that one’s very close behind the other three. None of them strike me as being clearly ‘great’ coasters, although like I said Raging Bull clearly has the largest potential. Iron Wolf and Batman are relatively more successful, but while each makes the most with what they’re given, neither was given all too much, both being prototype models from early in B&M’s career. In fact I don’t think I could declare any of these to be the best ride in the park. To find out which ride I would bestow that honor to, please read the Classic Steel & Wood review below… the result is almost guaranteed to surprise you.

Whizzer

Is there no pride left in being a family coaster? Have we really gotten to the point that if a park wants to add a family ride it has to be brief, compact, brightly colored and spinning? What happened to the days when a coaster could be a genuine work of art while still being accessible to entry-level riders? With Big Bad Wolf now gone the Whizzer could very well be the best example of a classical family coaster that’s just as appreciated whether it’s your first coaster or your four-hundredth. Whizzer could even be the best coaster in the park. I’m not sure if I would personally make that claim (see below) but it’s not hard to see how someone could. From the layout to the rolling stock to the natural setting in the center of the park (did that land really used to be a flat cleared field?) the Whizzer is full of unique character.

It starts with the trains, which are designed placing riders inline, allowing two people to share in the excitement of the ride together if they wish, and for single riders there is plenty of legroom and the restraints (basically a seatbelt and that’s it) are as non-restrictive as they come without being altogether missing. The low-slung sides also allow for one plenty of visual freedom, as well as increasing the sense of exposure to the surroundings as you feel as though you could easily reach out and grab leaves off the trees if you really wanted to. The spiral lift is an oddity in itself and is a unique way to start the ride off. The motors that power it uphill are actually located inside the trains, although I’m not sure if they’re powered from an electrical strip running along the lift or are completely self-contained (I’m guessing the former). It takes a while to get to the top as well, not because the motor is slow but because it takes so much track to wrap around three and a half times that it can take well over a minute before we get to the top.

The first half of the Whizzer is exceptional, with no steep drops to speak of but some long runways that quickly build momentum and lets the train fly effortlessly through ground-level turns along the forest floor. These are well-balanced with slower moments circling around the canopies, allowing time to breath. The first drop in particular can even be a bit intimidating, recalling in some ways the Beast’s incredible finale, with a long, shallow descent accumulating speed before that potential energy explodes into kinetic as it plows around the sharp turn through the trees at the bottom, making me wish for a moment I had more holding me into the trains than just this flimsy little seatbelt.

After this first half and it makes its way around the lift, the coaster doesn’t thrill me as much. It wanders through some s-turns halfway between ground and sky, finishing the layout with a downward helix. I think Schwarzkopf could have done something better than a helix, that’s a bit too easy and simple a solution, and one that feels a tad overused. Overall I think the finale doesn’t quite fulfill the promise of the first half, and the ride is slightly uneven in that regard, since I imagine young coaster riders might be too frightened by the more intense opening act, and then, once they’ve gotten used to the ride experience, there’s nothing new to challenge them in the second half.

Still, the setting is fantastic, and the places along the course where there’s not as many trees as I’d like only highlight how dense the foliage is around some of the other parts. Needless to say, this was the one coaster I wanted to end the day with, and the nighttime atmosphere does improve the ride a great deal, even if there are a few more lights along the course than I would have liked. Overall this is still a must-ride for anyone visiting the park, whether you’re a thrill seeker normally only interested in the headlining B&M attractions or new to roller coasters altogether. The very thought that this could have been removed for Superman back in 2002 is quite upsetting, but clearly I was not alone in those sentiments as the ride remains running to this day.

Demon

If all of Six Flags Great America’s coasters went to high school, Demon would be the shrimpy nerdy one that’s convinced he’s really the most totally awesome thing since the invention of the printing press. It’s got the all-black paint scheme with goofy rock-face structures, two special effects tunnels that try to dazzle and impress even though they used these big, carnival style incandescent light bulb strips, and of course the old “Demon Song” was playing all over the station. Step into the Demon queue and you’ll be directly transported back into 1979.

The coaster itself is a pretty decent riding experience. I got a couple late evening/early night rides and that really improved the ride experience in the tunnels and out on the farther unlit portions of the course. You do have to be of a certain height to enjoy these Arrow looping coasters, as too short can mean the horsecollar restraints connect with your earlobes, and too tall means they fit uncomfortably tight on top of your shoulders. If you’re in the intended height range then the first drop and two loops can be a fun, intense and dizzying affair. I’d be curious to know how it was back when it was the Turn of the Century and had two camelback hills where the loops are today; they looked like more extreme versions of Cedar Point’s Corkscrew’s single air hill and that one is quite intense by itself.

Things like the long straightaway in the special effects tunnel after the loops do help make the ride experience a fun one, cheesy as they are. The second half after the tunnel doesn’t have quite as much going for it as the first, the turnaround taking a while to get through and then the corkscrews over the railroad tracks and final helix are both a bit slower paced and a bit rougher, but it helps round out the ride experience to feel more complete than some of the other early small-scale Arrow multiloopers that charge through the course in less than 45 seconds. Honestly I don’t miss the Shockwave at all since the park still has the Demon, whose  mixture of low-key, small scale thrills with a larger-than-life persona and a full-on 80’s cheese fest, make it one of the most purely fun coasters in Six Flags Great America.

Viper

I was looking forward to this one. I really liked it back in 2003, but wasn’t so keen on it in 2005 when it seemed much rougher. However most of the reviews I read online seemed to corroborate better with my 2003 opinion, saying it tracks incredibly well and even that it could be Six Flag’s best wooden coaster after El Toro. After getting three rides on it this year (back row, front row and 1-3) I have to say that while the first part of those claims is very true (that it’s very smooth and well-maintained) I can’t agree with the second part. As another Cyclone-clone, this one seemed relatively conservative and didn’t do much for me.

It’s still a very fun ride, and easily accessible to people unsure about wooden coasters. The station and setting is great, the structure looks magnificent from off-ride, the two thirty-passenger trains keep the line moving, and best of all it is impeccably maintained. It feels like luxury shock absorbers have been retrofitted to the trains, so smooth do we sail over airtime hills and turns with no loss of pace due to potholing or shuffling that normally plagues wooden coasters from this era. I couldn’t be sure but it appeared as though there were more layers of wood that make up the track than on normal wooden coasters.

So why do I merely give it a passing grade? I think it was just that the coaster lacked much bite. The bookending fan turns in particular were a bit of a snooze, the first one with very gentle lead-ins/outs taking far too long to complete, and the others feeling very controlled and forceless as well. There was none of the sharp snaps over the crests of the dives that I loved on the Georgia Cyclone. The centerpiece airtime hills and drops were a bit better, but again in all seats they lacked any sort of aggressiveness, instead opting for smooth, sustained floater air. That’s alright in most cases, but not for a ride based on the Cyclone where I expect more out-of-control intensity. Regardless, this isn’t the ideal layout for that type of airtime since only one or two hills are achieved before the pace has to halt for another fan turn that accomplishes little besides turning the train around again. Probably the most effective moment was the double dip off the second turn and the sharp, straight camelback hill buried in the lift super structure that followed. Intense, yes. Aggressive, not quite; the transitions were still feather-light and lacked the snap I normally associate with these rides. It’s not enough to just be held out of my seat, I want to be jolted out of it. Maybe it was just a case of having the wrong expectations, but I personally would take the other, edgier Cyclone counterparts over this one any day of the week.

American Eagle

Asked me before I left I would have said no. Asked me after my first ride I would have said unlikely. But asked me at the end of the day, after three consistently great rides on it, what my vote for best roller coaster in the park would be, I would have to give it to the American Eagle. Surprised? Me too!

This was not a coaster I liked much before, or ever gave much thought to it. Which genius was it that thought a gigantic helix in the middle of a twin-tracked coaster would be a good element to ensure evenly timed races? The plus-plus-sized heights and speeds only meant that a): the fast parts would be all the more rough and unbearable, and b): they would quickly be braked, turning it into one of those overscaled lame duck monstrosities. Being one of only two coasters in the park without Flash Pass entry is also not a good omen; the station is located behind the railroad tracks leading to an awkward, half-mile queue over and around obstacles that would be nearly impossible to integrate a Flash Pass merge point with, not that it matters since no one bothers to ride it anyway.

We’re poised on the edge of the first drop (147 ft, second largest drop in the park and still well within the top ten for wooden coasters) and here’s a good sight to behold: no trim brakes anywhere along the first stretch of the ride (evidently I’ve been conditioned by Mean Streak to just assume they will be a prominent feature on any coaster that predates CCI’s first work). The train falls way down, partially into a valley, the return tracks flanking either side of us and creating a cool support bridge overhead as we pull out of the first drop.

The official statistic for speed is 66 mph. Normally I take those values with a grain of salt, at least for older coasters that probably haven’t run at their listed speed since opening season, but with no trim brakes or anything else holding us back, I must say, it felt fast. Almost dangerously fast. Despite the high speeds it wasn’t rough; those excellent Viper crews obviously have been spending a fair amount of time on the Eagle as well. There was however a strong vibration, unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced: an extremely fine-but-aggressive vibration, like we’re sitting in a vibra-massage chair set on high. It doesn’t jostle us around in our seats in any particular direction, it just rattles our nerves while our center of gravity moves smoothly forward like we’re on Raging Bull. It also rattles my nerves thinking about how ridiculously over-speed we must be going to get this sort of sensation.

Two very low bunny hops keep this incredible pace up as we get lifted over the crest of each hill for a couple moments of floater air. “Now this is what more roller coasters should be like,” I think as we rush through the final valley before the big pull-up, the terrifying speed melting the immediate surroundings into a blur as we charge along with the utmost control, feeling as though something could go wrong at any moment even though it hasn’t. A brake run is found at the top of this hill, not a big deal because we’re so far up that the train has slowed to 10 mph anyway. While the pacing has slowed to almost nil, the downward helix works very effectively at slowly building tension, as the speed continues to increase as we make our way around it, laterals increasing, rattling getting heavier and heavier until we reach full speed in the last stretch. The slow building tension lets up for a fast, straight stretch of track as we cross under the upper layer of the helix, and then it implodes. A dip taking us the rest of the way to ground level comes out of nowhere and hits us hard, especially riding in the back seat. Strong ejector air sustained for several long moments as the speed blasts back into the dangerous levels it was on the first leg of the journey. Some more lean, mean airtime hills follow (it differs slightly depending on which side of the track you’re on, I think the left side may have had one more hill) showing off just how much power this coaster has when it’s running at full speed.

The ride I described above could easily find its way onto my top 15 list of wooden coasters, but unfortunately those high-speed sections last too briefly, and on the return run we are halted after only two or three hills with a brake run that spits us into a pointless helix finale. Very slow by comparison to the rest of the ride, it’s also probably the roughest, and in general breaks flow and feels like it belongs to a different ride. After that distraction we’re greeted with another brake run, this one final.

I wish I got more than just three rides on it, since I’m not sure I can count on the American Eagle running this well in the future. Especially with fast wooden coasters like this, the slightest variations such as the day’s temperature or humidity or the weight distribution of the train can start that refined vibration into a shimmy that eats away at the track and before we know it we’re on the one-way pain train to chiropractor junction. Hopefully the maintenance crew knows how to keep it in this condition since it truly was one of the better coasters at Six Flags Great America, and one of the better wooden coasters I’ve been on in general. It’s a beautiful ride as well, and if they could just figure out a better way to connect the station to the rest of the park and get some more crowd flow to that back corner of the park, I think it could be one of Six Flag’s more popular attractions. Even my mom, who generally has a low tolerance for rough or uncomfortable coasters, was first to admit before me that this was her favorite coaster in the park that day.