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"My head hurts."
From my house, Michigan's Adventure is an annoyingly long drive. That annoyingly long drive combines with an irritating operating schedule which makes it mostly impossible to do Michigan's Adventure as a single day trip. Even more annoying is the lack of other attractions along the way. Well there is one place, anyway, and it's sort of along the way...that would be Fun Spot, Pat Hoffman's park up in Angola, Indiana. That's the extreme Northeast corner of Indiana. I had tried to visit there last season after the ACE Spring Con, but the park was closed when I arrived. I hoped to have better luck this time.
"Expect the Unexpected."
--The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, p. 7,023.
For my trip to Fun Spot, I picked a path across Ohio which took me out US-33
to OH-117. This took me right into the Indian Lake region, a place where historians
will tell you that Ohio used to have a major amusement resort. But like Chippewa
Lake, Myers Lake, Olentangy Park, Lakeside Park, and Buckeye Lake, that park
closed many years ago. Well before my time, anyway. So imagine my surprise when
I spotted a blue highway sign:
| AMUSEMENT
PARK <-- 4 THE FUN PLACE |
|||||
|
Well, you know what those two words mean: SIDE TRIP!!! So I'll momentarily interrupt my Fun Spot report here by turning off of OH-117 just North of US-33, and down OH-235.
<side_trip>
"I've never heard of this place before!"
How could there possibly be an amusement park in Ohio that I had never heard of? This is a little like my trip up from Florida when I "discovered" Wild Adventures! I wonder what this place will be like.
Well, it didn't take long to find out. Rising from the side of the road was a gleaming white structure which I immediately recognized as a Skycoaster A-frame...a 1/3-scale replica of the 300-foot unit at Million Dollar Mulligan's down in Kissimmee. In the words of Brigham Young, "This is the place."
The sad truth is that The Fun Place hardly qualifies as an amusement park. It's a fairly large building containing a spacious arcade and ticket office; behind and around this are three Go Kart tracks (with four varieties of karts), another area with odd little "Spin 'N Bump Karts", a collection of kiddie rides, a Funni-Frite Wacky Shack fun house, and of course the Skycoaster. I didn't actually ride anything, but I did speak briefly with someone who seems to be one of the principals. It turns out that the place hasn't been around for long, and their 100' Skycoaster was one of the last ones built before Sky Fun 1 was bought. The FEC [Footnote 1] is obviously mostly a Go-Kart track, and now that I think about it I think they have a miniature golf course as well. But it looks like they may well expand into some more traditional amusement rides in the coming seasons. Oh, it is worth noting that tickets are $4 each, and the Skycoaster requires two tickets. So unless I read the sign wrong, the Skycoaster is $8/person, making it the cheapest Skycoaster I have ever seen. I still didn't try it. Instead, I played a couple of games of pinball, and headed on down the road to Fun Spot.
Ride ListFootnote 1: Family Entertainment Center [Return to text]
</side_trip>
I had been to Fun Spot once before, but the place was closed. I knew that Fun Spot had two coasters I had never ridden, also a couple of rides from Old Indiana, including a Troika and a Bayern Kurve. I got there a little after 5pm...er...4pm (Indiana doesn't go to daylight savings time; Ohio and Michigan do, so I didn't bother resetting my watch) and bought a POP wristband for $7.
The park itself reminds me of Lakemont Park, mostly because while it is a small park, it is also spacious, and laid out in a grid. Unlike Lakemont, all of the gridlines do not connect, but like Lakemont, there aren't a whole lot of trees around. Upon entering the park, I first encountered a group of old, circular kiddie rides. These were interesting, not because there was anything remarkable about the rides (a wet boat, a Turtle, a Skyfighter, a Pony Cart, a train ride, and a couple of Hamptons) but because of the unusual controls. Instead of the typical STOP and GO buttons with the operator presence pedal, these rides had a key switch and a little black gizmo. The gizmo is an inductive switch operated by putting a finger into a groove on the surface. Simple and effective...finger present, ride runs. Finger goes away, ride stops. Neat idea, and I've never seen it anywhere else.
On into the park, the layout is in the form of several spurs. Straight ahead is a games building and the largest concentration of rides with the Scrambler, Wheel, Tilt-A-Whirl, and Go-Karts. Before reaching the games building, another spur features a Paratrooper and a Flying Scooter. I did manage to get the cable to snap on this Scooter, though nothing like what I usually get at Kings Island. Someone said that these just run at top speed and are difficult to control; yes, they run pretty fast, but I was able to get some control.
On down from the Flying Scooter is the path to the water slide. There is a big space that looks like it could be made into a fairly impressive waterpark, but for the moment it is just a tower with a few slides that empty into two residential-style pools. I skipped it. There is a fairly extensive picnic ground and a sand volleyball court, right across from an unmanned glass house. Across the back of the park is a row of flat rides that all look like they have seen better days...a Round Up, a Sea Dragon, and anchoring the back end of this segment of midway is the Zyklon. A hike past the Zyklon leads to the Afterburner, and this is where I started my coaster tour.
The Afterburner is the prototype of the Arrow Launched Loop, which originally operated at Circus World. The ACE Guide To Ride says that this coaster, "still retains its unique elevator ride up to the station." Don't you believe it! The elevator is in pieces rusting away in the field across from the coaster in the back corner of the park grounds. Those of us who want to ride have to climb those awful stairs instead. At least the operators were being nice about it, allowing us to change seats on the platform instead of making us walk up and down. I did think it a little odd that as a single rider I was required to sit in the right-hand seat. We brave riders took our seats in the train, lowered what the operator described as "headache bars" and with a whirr and a whoosh, we were off.
Someday, somewhere, maybe I will be able to ride an Arrow shuttle loop that doesn't desperately need new guide wheels. The ride is essentially a straight line, but because of that the guide wheels never get replaced, and the train starts ping-ponging on the launch track.
I was surprised when it felt like a brake caught the train just before we headed down the forward drop into the vertical loop. Maybe it was just the pusher releasing from the back of the train. Anyway, while you can't help but hate the climb up and down the stairs, there is just something incredibly neat about these old Arrow shuttles. Hey, this ride is good for a few rides!
Unfortunately, from the Afterburner you can get a good look at the Troika and the Bayern Kurve. Both are sitting in the field behind the Zyklon, and neither is in operating condition. Both were purchased at auction from Old Indiana Fun Park. The Troika looked like it was fully assembled, but all of the panels were removed from the center. The Bayern Kurve also appeared to be fully assembled apart from a couple of theming panels and the ride's train, which was dismantled and sitting next to the ride. Needless to say, I didn't get to ride either ride. 8-(
Having had my fill of the Afterburner, I headed for the Zyklon. Normally, I kind of like these little Italian coasters, but this one was a different story. The coaster has only two cars, and the operator only allows one car out of the station at a time. Fortunately, there is no big crowd waiting for the ride, so the wait isn't long. Perhaps it would be better if it was. The car rolled into the loading area, and I took a look.
It's a standard Pinfari Zyklon car, or at least it was. But a frame has been added to the backs of the seats, and some plastic panels have been cobbled into place. Mechanical components have been added to the car and the back panel of the front seat extends all the way to the floor, seriously curtailing the foot room in the back seat. A little padding is not well positioned to save the knees, but when riding this thing, your knees are the least of your worries. With the seat back extended to well overhead, this car has been equipped with Arrow-style shoulder bars.
Now, it is the standard Pinfari seat, and the bar is offset a little to the outside. This is the first problem, as the opening in the center of the bar isn't really where your head should be. Once down, the bar is just above my ear, which is a very bad place considering that the seat offers absolutely no lateral support whatsoever. The ride is your basic midsize Zyklon, which means several significant body-slams into the shoulder bar, and a bit of a catapult at the end of the ride. I swear, this thing is more violent than Outer LIMits! Visibility is practically non-existent even in the front seat, and there is enough lateral force on the ride to make any Zyklon exciting. Any Zyklon other than this one, anyway...this one is just made dangerous.
In fairness to Fun Spot, this coaster looks very familiar. I think it is the same coaster that once played the carnival circuit including the Ohio State Fair. I never rode it back then, but I remember the odd-looking cars. But even so, does Indiana not require that the ride conform to manufacturer's specifications? That car configuration isn't in any Pinfari manual, and can be readily argued to be unsafe. My head hurts just thinking about it!
A couple of rides on that awful Zyklon were more than enough for me. I don't usually rank coasters,, but if I did that ride would be really close to the bottom. This ride needs a couple of new cars; the ones I saw at Coney Island would be great. But the ones on it now are really, really awful. Not to mention falling apart; one of the bumper assemblies actually fell apart at some point during the day. Fortunately, with only two cars on the track that particular failure isn't a major problem.
I did have a barbecue chicken sandwich while I was there, at the stand across from the Flying Scooter. It was a frozen broiled chicken patty which had been heated and glazed with barbecue sauce. It was actually fairly good, and at $4 including a large drink...come to think of it I think that also included fries...I really can't complain. Heck, at some parks you pay that much for the large drink!
So the day was winding down. I didn't feel like climbing the stairs to ride the Afterburner again, my headache from the Zyklon was just beginning to subside, and I'd ridden just about everything else in the park. It was time for me to go. Except for the Zyklon, Fun Spot is a well-kept park which seems to be a sort of a cross between Lakemont Park and Camden Park. It's worth a visit if you are in the area, if only because it has the only operating looping coaster in Indiana [Footnote 1]. Just remember if you go that if it rains, the park is probably closed.
I hit the road and headed for Muskegon, fully expecting to spend the night in Grand Rapids.
Ride List--
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1: There is at least one Arrow Corkscrew on site
at Old Indiana, but that is not operating. [Return to text.]
--DCAjr
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