Cyclonic
Posts: 2636
Registered: 7/19/2002
Rank: Experiment 626
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 6/1/2005 8:15:45 PM
OK, I am running a little behind on trip reports here, so I am going to try to catch up. I think I will start with the more recent one, and work haphazardly from there.
I met up with Steve O'Donnell, Sandy Nicolaysen and his family, wife Patti, and teenage daughters Karen and Jen, to make use of the PA State Fair's carload night. It was $60 for the carload, up to eight people, so the six of us piled into Sandy's Suburban and split it to come out $10 a head. Great deal considering you got admission and a wristband, and Reithoffer Shows carries a KMG Afterburner with their Blue unit which was doing the fair this year (and most years).
We got in the gates just after seven. The evening was perfect, nice puffy white clouds in the skies, about 65-70. We did the midway in a clockwise direction. We hit up a couple of funhouses, which only had maybe half the stunts working,
before getting to the Afterburner, which the fair calls the Wild Claw. This is a night shot I took of it later at night. The picture does not do the awesome lighting package justice.
I, unfortunately, could not ride this time around. The ride op was pretty lackluster, and did not really make an attempt to help me lock the restraints. Yes, I am big, yes I need to lose weight, but I am not this bad. It was OK in the end, because he was not driving the ride, so it was not doing what it can really do. Later in the night, there was another ride op, and he had no trouble getting me in, and he gave us an awesome driven ride.
We skipped the tower, which as I recall from last year is not all that good anyway,
and rode the very poor Haunted Mansion.
Finally, it was time to get some Speed.
This is brand new, and is the KMG version of the SkyScraper. I had never been on a SkyScraper, simply could never justify the price, but this was just ten bucks, and worth every penny. We got an awesome ride, lots of end over end spinning, and this lady driving it was even like power diving us to the ground, giving some great G's, not to mention the illusion of crashing into the deck. Just a fantastic ride.
Next was the best of the funhouses, which I somehow forgot to photograph. This one had a great ending, the one where you sit on a bench, and it drops away and you go bouncing down a conveyer belt. Lots of fun.
Across the way was an Avalanche, which was fun too, with a mad ride op that had it cranked up at the end.
Then came a ride on a Tornado, with some mega spinning, followed up by a ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl, with not so much spinning. The ride op was trying to drive this, and other cars were getting some great spinning action, but we balanced our car out wrong and got very little. Our fault really.
Now came a ride on the most diabolical flat on the midway, the Zipper.
This thing was run by a mad man, and it was wonderful. The ride op is the same one year after year, and he knows what he is doing, and it showed. Lots of flipping, repeatedly, it was just an awesome ride.
We slowed down a little bit with a ride on the Ferris Wheel,
where I got some great dusk pictures of the fair.
That was pretty much it. We went back and got seconds on the Afterburner and Speed, and then left, leaving about twenty of ten. It was a good night for the fair, the place was busy, but not crowded. I know it was crowed over the weekend, I drove by on Monday afternoon and the
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