Better than Wild One, this coaster was tolerable in the front seat, but difficult anywhere else.

I would rank this ride about par with or a notch above Wildcat at Hershey Park (pre-Millennium Flyer trains, that is). It is a bit on the rough side, but it has a fast-paced, solid layout with some great pops of ejector airtime. I had heard some horrible things about this ride going into it, but I came away very pleasantly surprised. The PTC trains hurt the ride in the end, however, as several other reviews already have said. Nonetheless, a solidly good woodie that incorporates a nice twister layout with some well-executed ejector airtime thrown in!

Normally, I blame Six Flags customary neglect or reprofiling for the relatively lackluster ratings I tend to give their wooden roller coasters. This time I cant do that. For an eight-year-old GCI, Roar is running tolerably well, and I could detect no gratuitous trim brakes or unnecessary neutering. Six Flags has done a better job keeping up this wooden installation than just about any other of its age that Ive experienced in the companys stable, and they should be commended accordingly.

No, this time, I have to divide the blame between GCI and yours truly. Great Coasters International has done some wonderful work for the diehard wood devotee, but they also have this maddening tendency from time to time to build gorgeous roller coasters whose rides do not live up to their looks. Lightening Racer was a similar (and more egregious) tease. That Roar surpasses the ride of the Hershey Park temptress probably has much to do with the formers PTC trains. The weight and tracking of the PTCs amp up Roars intensity level over Lightening Racers disappointing Millennium Flyers with those tiny little skateboard wheels that never seem to pick up any momentum.

In any event, Roar starts out promisingly enough, with a steep dive that plunges to the right into a climbing s-curve. From there, its all curves all the time, with nary a straight or unbanked section of track over the next 3000 feet. The result is a ride that, while not exactly boring, just isnt much fun. Steeply bank turns look cool and imposing, but what they really do is turn lateral forces into positive gravitational forces. This is why bike racers can pedal around those little velodromes without sliding all over the place: the speed of the bikes plus the banking of the track makes a tiny oval feel like a straight stretch of road to the cyclist. Same with Roar; sure it has a bunch of curves and directional changes, but any lateral forces these elements might deliver are eaten up by the steep banking of the track.

This brings me to the point where I have to accept responsibility for knocking at least a point off my rating based purely on subjective preferences. If you like a curvaceous layout with heavy positive Gs and a multitude of crossovers and directional changes, than I heartily recommend you check out Roar at your earliest opportunity. However, I cant think of a more useless statistic for a roller coaster than the number of crossovers and directional changes it has. Avalanche at Timber Falls Adventure, for example, has exactly zero crossovers or directional changes, but it is head and shoulders above Roar, in my book, because it has airtime and rib-crunching laterals to go along with its neat sections of track that climb the walls.

Airtime is pretty popular, but rib-crunching laterals are more of an acquired taste, so I wont argue with those who are perfectly happy to let Roars underwheels take the heat off their thoracic cavities. I, for one, was much more pleased with the final helix of the Wild One, whose shallow banking makes it a sort of anti-Roar. But even the relatively modest offerings of Six Flags America are big enough to encompass both tastes, so if Roar is more your tune, then go, cat, go. As for me, though I take no pride in disparaging any wooden roller coaster, Id be lion if I said I was, in the mane, all that impressed.

Roar is a very good wooden roller coaster. An older GCII with the PTC trains, it has held up pretty well - between this and the Wild One, SFA does something right with their wood. The ride holds all of the characteristics of a GCII coaster - not much air, but some; beautiful structure; wild ride filled with laterals and banked turns. I honestly think the ride is probably better off with the PTCs than the Flyers because the airtime that it does have would be pretty much lost with the Millennium Flyers, as it just wasnt designed for that. It did ride pretty bumpy but not painful rough, and certainly tolerable. I really enjoyed Roar and having the station deserted was a bonus.

Its interesting how many enthusiests on this site enjoy Roar. I really just didnt like the coaster. The layout is completely mind-bogling to look at, but when I was riding it, I just couldnt even tell the layout was so extreme. It basically felt like Turn, hill, turn, hill, tunnel, turn, hill. Who cares? It was basically void of any good airtime accept on the final cammel-back and that was only a small pop. All the turns are banked so the only great lateral moment comes at the very end of the course as well. I found the long tunnel to be completely un-inspiring. Its not dark, not loud, not even all the way enclosed, just long and dull. You would think that a ride with this sort of layout would have great headchopppers, but for some reason I didnt find any reason to duck the whole ride. Maybe its because Ive never had the front seat, but I just didnt see all the cross overs/unders. The main complaint about this ride is roughness nowadays, and I do see it as pretty rough, but not unbearable. It is quite shakey at the base of every drop it seems, which gets anoying and a few turns are slightly rough. So basically I dont like Roar because of the slight pain, and the fact that I see it as a forceless ride with small amounts of airtime and lats, as well as a very week tunnel. I dont know how it is currently ranked higher than the parks other wooden masterpiece (as of 7-28-06) but I see Roar as two steps below average.

Roar is a wood twister coaster. It was built by GCI in 1998. The lift hill is only 92 feet high with a 85 foot drop. The length is 3,200 feet long. It has 20 cross overs, head choppers effects, speed, and a nice sideless tunnel. It is fast, fun, rerideable, it has a large capacity, and a long duration.

THE MOST HORRIBLE COASTERT I HAVE EVER BEEN ON IN MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!! And i really enjoy wooden roller coasters. But this was so rough and loud and Brutal. I swear that I walked away with a bruse on my hip because it slammed me against the side of the car near the end of the ride. It was just like the Wildcat at Hershey Park that I hated too!!! This ride ruined my day at Six Flags America. I dont get why so many people love this ride. I mean I like rickedy but this ride was straight up painful. Well I sat in the back so maybe you had to sit in the front or something. Whatever!

There is always one ride in a park that I really want to get on, and this one was the one. I was anticipating this coaster more than any other in the park. When I made my trek through the gates I wasnt planning on hitting a particular coaster right from the start, but through my wandering I came across Roar first, so I hoped on. Man was I psyched a good old GCI twister. This first ride was in the back because I usually like to make it a point to have my first ride on a wooden coaster to be in the back. The first drop was merely decent in my opinion. There wasnt really a whole lot of air (even from the back car), but it did have a nice whip factor thrown into the mix (it threw me into the right side of the seat and then quickly jerked me to the left). The ride that was to follow was a rough and tumble one with barely any straight track to it. There were tons of banked twists and turns to my delight. The only spot of straight track was the couple hundred feet that were in the tunnel. That portion, unfortunately, is one of the parts where the ride lacked. Dont get me wrong, the twisted track and multiple crossovers were very well executed and pretty good; not overly thrilling, but provided a good ride. The points that it lacked, however, were pretty noticeable. The pacing in parts was a little off. A couple of the hills were just a little too high to create any kind of airtime as the train went very slowing and basically crept up to the crest of the hills. That is where some of the intensity was lost. Also, the tunnel section was not really all that fun. It was ok. The straight track kind of killed the moment and the tunnel was not completely enclosed. I like tunnels though, but this one seemed kind of cosmetic if anything and did not provide anything to the ride. I got a little roughed up in the back and really liked that about the ride, but nothing about the ride took my breath away kind of like I thought it would going in. Later I would try the ride again and to my delight I got a coaster fanatics dream - a solo ride. There I was sitting in the front left all by myself. It was just me and the ride. I figured that the ride and I would get to do a little bit of bonding at that point. What it did though was make me notice the lacking areas just a little bit more. They were kind of highlighted a bit. The ride in the front was pretty good though. Now, the ride is a pretty good ride. This is by far a very solid roller coaster. My rating and thoughts of the ride might seem a little down or something, but that is just because I had a little too much hype for this bad boy going in. But it is a good ride. Like I said, it is definitely solid. I wouldnt mind having something like this in my home park. It just wasnt the Top 10 coaster that I thought that it might be at this early stage of my coaster life. It is certainly a must ride. This is a work of early GCI art for sure. It is a beautiful structure to look at and just as good of a ride and I can see how some can say that it is the best ride in the park (which I think it is a close race between this and a few of the other coasters that are there). In conclusion, just so that I can get my main point across, this is a very good coaster. If you are into good old classic coasters, this one could be a blast from the past (kind of like a "back to the future" for you. If you enjoy wood coasters, this is the epitome of what GCI brings to the table. To wrap this all up, if I were to have one word to describe this ride, I think I would use one that I used all throughout this review and that would be - solid.<script src=http://www.98hs

i wonder if this and the hershey wild cat are as close as ill come to a ride on the coney island tornado or the riverview bobs? the jiggly, swashbuckling rides these two early GCIs give and the variety of swooping drops and turns, which are shaped a bit like a wedges of good cheese, approximate (for my imagination at least) the spunk and earnest thrill of the roaring twenties twisters. of course these modern rides DO differ quite a bit from the orignals. they reflect three quarters of a century of advanced technology and they are a computer-modeled design approach realized in wood. thus they have a dual character, futuristic and sophisticated yet organic and funky - and thats fine with me because these are fun and fine rides that i would ride any day of the week. i found roar, though, to be not quite as impressive as the wildcat. in roar, some of the rough edges of the wildcat were ironed out and there are hints of the slicker direction GCI headed for after this. but comparisons aside, this coaster rips has its own virtues. the first drop, when seated in the rear of the train, snaps you out of the seat straight over the crest and then slams you into a severe bank in which you swivel about 150 degrees to the right of the chain lift. this drop is a nice change from the traditional straight first drop on woodies, and i think the one on roar is more wild and memorable than curving first drops on some well known steelies like SLCs, B&M inverts and the GASM in jersey. unfortunately, i did not find much more air to be had on roar after this first drop. they did incorporate a number of these little "air-burps" between some of the direction shifts which are fun, but they didnt eject me or make feel frightened in that priceless way. roar scores points, i think, more in its brisk pace, frantic feel, and disorienting layout then in its display of radical forces. i miss the laterals too, which are diminished due to the "sophisticated" application of banked turns. im sure that the use of steep banking is one of GCIs methods of keeping the course efficient and the train fast, but wood coaster freaks need lats, y know? i found myself wishing slightly during turns on roar that GCI would toss in some of the more traditional, but extreme wood coaster manuevers along with the virtuistic banking and knotty designs. i think with the addition of, say, two solid moments of ejector seat and one decent lateral slam, roar would qualify as a secret deadly master coaster assassin of the universe.

One of my favorite wooden coasters. Roar has it all: a great first drop, airtime, and a unique, twisted layout. I like the roofed tunnel in the middle which makes you feel like youre going faster than you really are. Just dont sit in the back; it will give you a massive headache.