Park Review
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Valencia, CA April 7, 2001 I just got in from five hours at Six Flags Magic Mountain, and thought I'd let you in on various things that I noted along the way. I arrived at 5pm expecting a fairly thick crowd since the park was open until 10pm and it was the first day of Spring Break for many of the local schools. Thankfully, I was wrong and the crowds were pretty light. Since the park was well into it's operating day, I started things out a bit differently than normal and went straight to Viper. Viper is the Arrow multi-looper on the hill, and it was a practical walk-on. So I took two rides in the back, my normal spot, then one up front. Even the front was running smoothly tonight - no bumps even in the corkscrews. Very fun, and still one of my favorites. After Viper I headed around the back of the park towards Psyclone Bay, and lo and behold what appears in the sky? Is that bright lime green track I see? Yes! The boomerang and straights are done on Deja Vu! Looks like they are ready to build the station. But the funny thing was no supports or other work for the towers appeared to be done. We'll see how long that takes. Also, all the rumors of work being done on Psyclone appear to be just that - rumors. No sign of work being done at all. No new wood, missing track, etc. So any hope of fixing this piece of junk appears lost for now. After that, I had some fun on Batman, Riddler's Revenge and some other rides. Nothing new or noteworthy there, so I won't bore you. Then I hit Colossus a couple of times, since there were no lines, and could almost do nothing but weep over this once-great ride. Only one side was open, since about the only time they open both sides of the racer is on the busiest of days, and then they almost never race anyways. But even in the back the coaster seemed so slooowwww. No pep at all to it. The end might have been salvageable if they still had the double dip that they changed into a brake, but no dip - instead, a hard, biting brake that then makes the train crawl through the long last turn around. About the only air was on the first and second drops, and other than that, nothing. I'd love it if they did what they used to a few years ago and run one side backwards. They have to use Psyclone's trains to do it now, but that's fine with me. Pull the trains off and put them where they might give some excitement. Then maybe they could try some other trains on Psyclone, which might actually make it rideable. But then that may be too optimistic. After that I went to Goliath. Still awesome, though the midcourse is definitely on now more than it used to be. Hopefully, with Titan having that upward helix before the midcourse, it won't have as much bite there as Goliath does now. Man, I miss those first couple of weeks when the brake was practically turned off. After that I grabbed some rides on Superman, Ninja, and Revolution. Interesting note for Ninja, which I found out applies to the other coasters as well: The last occupied row on any ride has to have two people in it. They will not allow just one, which meant I couldn't ride in the back seat by myself. The reason why is in case of an accident where a passenger is incapacitated, etc, then there is another person there who can serve as a witness. Doesn't that make you feel good? :-) Then it was 10pm, closing time, which meant time to go.
A few other news and notes: I was also on the watch for bottom wheel spin, since that discussion was on the list a bit ago, and can confidently say that watching every coaster, at no time did I ever see a bottom wheel that was not in contact with the track or spinning freely. I also checked out Goliath Jr., which is small, goes in a fairly simple oval, with several small bunny hops in it. But if you're over 52 inches, forget it. They will not let you on it, period. Not even the employees. I talked to a few working it, and boy did they gripe about that! They are building a bridge from Baja Ridge over the main path to Viper out to where X will load up. But to build it, they have the entire Baja Ridge area closed off where the restaurant/patio is and all torn up. According to the map, a Panda Express Chinese food place is going in there, but not much else other than X's entry. Another piece of bad news, though sadly not untypical of SFMM, is that the long-rumored loss of two more flat rides is apparently true. While they are still standing, and their buildings are drawn on the new map, there are no longer notations for Spin Out (rotor) and Acme Atom Smasher (Himalaya). So it looks like they are out of the picture now, leaving an even greater lack of flat rides than there already was. Also over at Gold Rusher they had one of the trains on the transfer track partially disassembled, giving a nice view of the maintenance work that they do on the trains. The employees were also very noticeably friendly, much more-so than normal (and I've almost always found them friendly anyways), so that was nice to see. Overall, I'm fairly excited about what this year brings in new coasters. However, the loss of the flat rides, as well as a lack of any new shows really on the horizon, puts a bit of a damper on the upcoming year. Six Flags Magic Mountain really needs to address their flat ride situation if they want to call themselves an "Xtreme" park.
Keep on ridin'
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