General Carowinds discussion
#55736
So thanks to Wormy for his earlier overlay and Jay for his detective work on the markings, I'm starting to get a better idea of what I think the linear layout might look like. After carefully measuring and mapping out.... ok, I eye balled it and sketched with my mouse. Anyway, the upper most line seems the most likely route for the coaster out of the station and over to the grove area.

You will note the gray is the new road into the parking lot.

On the return trip, it's not clear at all what it might do. It could be the yellow, it could be the orange. Hopefully we'll have a better idea in the coming weeks. If you consider my yellow line to be roughly the new layout based on the Google Maps scale, the linear length is right around 5,000 feet. I would guess that accounting for the height of the hills, that number would easily exceed 6,500 feet. If it more closely followed the orange line and if it crossed itself again, we could easily see the length longer. That whole back area is mostly up in the air until we start seeing more markings and/or excavation.

#55739
It shouldn't really surprise anyone if this ride ends up being extremely similar to Leviathan. Just look at the history of Cedar Fair.

Magnum XL 200 (1989)
Wild Thing (1996)
Steel Force (1997)
Mamba (1998)

Behemoth (2008)
Diamondback (2009)
Intimidator (2010)

Leviathan (2012)
Carowinds giga (2015)
Knott's next? What about Dorney?
#55740
RollerBee wrote:Looks like Leviathan to me, how unorignal.


Already giving the park & Cedar Fair crap for something that at this moment is pure speculation. Even if it ends up being similar to Leviathan, it won't be a clone. Let's just chill out and enjoy the excitement and anticipation of something of this magnitude coming to our region and then start flinging poo once it's announced if you still feel the same way.
#55742
Here's a couple things my brain has been thinking of.

Do we know the approximate length of the Giga we are getting? If you take Intimidator and rotate it around to where the station is on top of the go carts it seems to take up the same amount of space you awesome artists have shown. You will have to "bend" it a little more to meet the Front Gate. Just wondering. :?

Can you imagine the line snaking through Thrill Zone? I just stared at the satellite image and wondered how they are going to handle the crowd in that area. Long lines back to the Scrambler and beyond. Oh My!!

Can't wait to finally go back to Carowinds.
#55744
chknwing wrote:again, there is nothing wrong with Leviathan other than its just a bit too short. Its a Giga at Carowinds, I will give you a few minutes to figure out how many gigas exist in the the US.

Unless I am incorrect, I think there are only 2 gigas in the US. Millenium Force and I-305. The other 2 are Leviathan in Canada and Steel Dragon in Japan. So a giga will truly be a destination attraction for Carowinds. Now there is speculation that Great Adventure, Busch Gardens Tampa, or Knott's Berry farm may eventually build a giga as well.
#55746
You are very right tyler, according to Roller Coaster Database, http://rcdb.com/rhr.htm?m=1&l=59 Millennium Force and I-305 are the only two 'traditional lift' coasters that hit the 300 foot mark. So simply outdoing Millennium's height by a foot or two would make out giga the tallest Giga coaster in not only the US, but in North America. If it hit 320, it would be the tallest giga in the world!! THAT is a destination coaster!
#55748
That new dubailand Six Flags park will have ALL current gigas beat in a few years. So what is Cedar Fair losing by not making Carowind's giga the tallest in the world for the two or three years that they can? It'd be foolish not to go ahead and break that world record, considering it'd be just temporary enough to not distract for their baby (Millennium Force) and still promote their new coaster on an epic scale.

Plus, it will allegedly be "world record breaking". Wouldnt that be the world record, height? Seems a little improbable to me though. imo.
#55749
redrunner97 wrote:That new dubailand Six Flags park will have ALL current gigas beat in a few years. So what is Cedar Fair losing by not making Carowind's giga the tallest in the world for the two or three years that they can? It'd be foolish not to go ahead and break that world record, considering it'd be just temporary enough to not distract for their baby (Millennium Force) and still promote their new coaster on an epic scale.

Plus, it will allegedly be "world record breaking". Wouldnt that be the world record, height? Seems a little improbable to me though. imo.

Cedar Fair (aka Cedar Point, aka Millennium Force) doesn't hold that world record so I've never really understood why they've protected that "North American" record so much anyway.

That's not even bringing up the argument that it's not even the biggest coaster in their own park (I know, I know... traditional lift).
#55752
coasterfreak wrote:You are very right tyler, according to Roller Coaster Database, http://rcdb.com/rhr.htm?m=1&l=59 Millennium Force and I-305 are the only two 'traditional lift' coasters that hit the 300 foot mark. So simply outdoing Millennium's height by a foot or two would make out giga the tallest Giga coaster in not only the US, but in North America. If it hit 320, it would be the tallest giga in the world!! THAT is a destination coaster!


The general public isn't as informed about roller coasters as we are and as such, Cedar Fair only focuses on buzz words that they will understand - longest, tallest, fastest, most ??'s, etc. Any other words like giga or hyper would just confuse guest as they don't know what they are. Intimidator is currently the tallest B&M coaster in the US and Carowinds only markets it as the Longest, Tallest, Fastest coaster in the Southeast. If they were to market it as Tallest hyper coaster from B&M in the US, it doesn't sound as "awesome" to the GP.

As far as the records go, who knows what they are looking at. They can't market it as the tallest coaster in the country because there are others that are taller. If they pass Millennium Force they might could market it as the tallest coaster with a lift hill in North America. Hell, even if they don't pass Millennium Force, as long as they go above 305' they could still market it as the tallest coaster in North America with a chain lift.

As far as what the world record would be, who knows... but let's break down our options for the hell of it.

-World's Longest Coaster: They could go for the world's longest coaster but to beat Steel Dragon's 8,133 feet this ride would cost WAYYYYY more than $30m. Leviathan isn't even in the Top 10 and it cost $28m.
-World's Fastest Coaster: It won't hit 150mph so it won't break Formula Rossa's record. The only way I see this record happening is if they throw "on a coaster with a lift hill" behind it. Steel Dragon is the record holder for the "lift hill" category and it comes in at 95mph so this could be a possibility as long as it hit 96mph or faster and they add the "with a lift hill" part.
-World's Tallest Coaster: This might be a possibility if, once again, they add "with a lift hill" to it. Steel Dragon comes in at 318' and while it's possible this one might break that height, the stuff I've seen says it won't.
-World's Longest Drop: Again, this might be a possibility if they add "with a lift hill" to it. Steel Dragon comes in at 306.8' and while it's possible this one might break that drop, the stuff I've seen says it won't.

Unless something different happens, the US record's should be easily broken if worded correctly. The world record's on the other hand... I'm betting we see some sort of weird way of wording something to get this one.
#55756
When you talk about "with a lift hill hill" or "traditional" records the GP has very little understanding or care. Most people are clueless. I've heard people (quite often) talk about intimidator saying its the tallest, longest, fastest in the world (Most people cant even get the name right, ive heard it called everything terminator to afterburn). One family thought it was over 100 Mph and it had a 90 degree drop with more drops than any coaster in the world :lol: I just kept my mouth shut. Whatever record it breaks, the more specific of a record it is doesn't really matter to most of GP because they'll turn it into whatever record they want. Sorry GP, im being a little harsh :lol:
#55757
Jonathan wrote:Instead of "with a lift", which is slightly confusing and sounds underwhelming, I would expect something more along the lines of "____est traditional roller coaster" or "traditional gravity powered coaster."


Those sound good as well. I was using the "with a lift" term for us coaster geeks. :)
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