Trip Report: Cedar Point (#3)
Sandusky, Ohio - 05/23/2004

"Well, that was a heck of a storm!"

Well, no, actually, it doesn't. So this time I'll ry to keep it brief, though there are a few items of interest.

I started my day on Magnum, then checked up on Dragster and Millennium Force. Of the three, I only rode Magnum, but I did some clock tests of all three--

Magnum XL-200:

Trains: 3
Load: 36
Interval: 1:12 (consistent)
Capacity: 1,800 PPH

Top Thrill Dragster:

Trains: 5
Load: 18
Interval: 1:14 (consistent)
Capacity: 875 PPH

Millennium Force:

Trains: 3
Load: 36
Interval: 2:24 (average of 10 dispatches)

Shortest: 1:43 (1,258 PPH)
Longest: 3:38 (594 PPH)

Capacity: 896 PPH

The practical upshot of all this is that Magnum is running as always, Dragster is becoming increasingly reliable, and there is something seriously wrong over at Millennium Force. For a detailed description of the Millennium Force problem, consult the discussion on PointBuzz.

It was still early in the day when I encountered Jay and Rich Hendry, and I ended up spending the rest of the day riding with them. Jay's impeccable timing put us in line for Dragster just as it was coming up from a short mechanical shutdown...we walked from the entrance directly to the bottom of the ramp at the station entrance. I'm not going to complain about a wait like that...it took me about 30 minutes to get a front-seat ride, my first Dragster ride of the season.

Dragster is one of those rides that is a great ride, totally unlike anything else on the planet, plenty of fun...and yet it is really not a favorite. I think Millennium Force and Magnum are both better coasters than Dragster, and if I had to pick just one Cedar Point coaster to ride, it wouldn't be Dragster. In part it's because an hours' wait for a 30-second ride seems like there is a lot of investment for not much payoff. The odd bit is that while the coaster doesn't do much, there also isn't a whole lot I can think of that would actually be worth doing after the top hat and full twist.

I got one more Dragster ride later in the day, and we got handstamps for a third during the 6:00 hour. But by 5:00, the winds had picked up, and by the time our time came around, Dragster was done for the day. So there you have it: the one time I actually tried to use Cedar Point's FreeWay program, it didn't work at all for me. Luckily I got two non-Freeway rides in, and I am still opposed to virtual queues. 8-)

We rode rides all over the park. The Gemini crew is doing better now, though they are still slow. Eventually I'll take a ride on the red train so that I can figure out what it is about the new exit gate that is snarling traffic on that side. Over on Raptor, whatever it was that was making the ride shriek last week is back to normal now. And after three visits to the park, I still have not ridden Woodstock Express yet this season. Oh, the shame of it.

When we got back to Mean Streak, we got hit with a half-dozen raindrops while going up the lift hill. The sky darkened, the wind picked up, we got pelted for five seconds, and by the time the ride was over, the storm had passed. The wind still hadn't died down enough to make Dragster happy, but for all the threats of inclement weather, that was all we got.

It was another good day in the park, and it's always fun to hang out with the Hendrys. As the season cranks into high gear, other parks are opening up and so I'll be away from CP for a while, so perhaps next time there will be a bit more to report.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

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