Trip Report: Stricker's Grove (#1)
Ross, Ohio - 10/02/2004

Stricker's Grove is a neat park, but it is a park that we coaster nuts don't get to visit very often because it is only open a couple of days per season. Most of the time the park hosts buy-out picnics, kind of like what Kings Island does for the entire month of September. Stricker's Grove does that all season long. This year, they had a third public day in October, and it happened to be the same day as the ACE/GOCC event at Kings Island. Well, I can go to Kings Island any day of the operating season, but Stricker's Grove is a little more difficult. So three of us opted to skip the Son of Beast tour and the scavenger hunt in favor of a quick detour to Stricker's Grove.

Stricker's Grove is a nice little picnic park, a kind of an informal place. A folding banquet table serves as the ticket booth and main gate. Just inside the gate is a banquet hall on one side, the park on the other. To the right is a very large picnic shelter. Straight ahead is a cookhouse, where you can make lunch of whatever is being grilled today. The midway extends off to the right, and across the midway is a building containing an arcade and a drink serving counter. As I approached to partake in Stricker's free soft drink program, a coaster nut approached me and told me to look behind the arcade building. I did, and what I saw there surprised me. But I'll get to that later. For the moment, I downed a beverage, then hiked down the midway.

The park has a collection of kiddie rides along one side of the midway, all of them ancient. On the other side, there is a small portable carousel which, a few years ago, the park put into a lovely brick pavilion and equipped with a wonderful little Stinson band organ. Just past the carousel pavilion is a large hunk of steel that was once a PTC Crazy Daisy, a two-turntable Cuddle Up. The ride has been stripped down, and from what I heard, won't be returning to Stricker's line-up.

Next to the remains of the Crazy Daisy is the station for the Chance CP Huntington train that runs around the outer perimeter of the park. This sits across from the Eli HY-5 cable-drive Ferris wheel. Next to that is an Eli Scrambler, then the park's most recent major ride, a Hrubetz Tip-Top and finally an Allan Herschell Helicopter. At the end of the midway is the Tornado, a mid-size wood coaster designed by Al Collins and built entirely in-house by Stricker's Grove.

The Tornado is based on John Allen's Mighty Lightnin', which used to run at Rocky Glen Park. I've praised the ride many times before, and a couple of years ago, I complained bitterly when Stricker's Grove replaced the original seat cushions with that miserable hard foam crap that is now featured on every operating adult-size PTC train in the State of Ohio. Here we have a wonderful wood coaster, the first coaster built in decades with non-articulated 3-bench PTC cars on it, and Stricker's had to screw it up with that miserable foam stuff. That said, it's otherwise a terrific little ride. The coaster is painted bright white, with a bright red trim, making it look like a coaster right out of RollerCoaster Tycoon. A closer examination reveals that when the track was painted bright red, the paint ended up all over the steel rails as well as on the wood track, and that probably explains why the ride was squealing a bit and seemed to be running just a tad slow. My first ride of the day was in the back seat, and that still supplies a couple of dramatic moments, particularly the spot that is almost but not quite a double-dip on the second pass through the center of the ride, where the track passes over the final run to the brakes. The ride is still expertly run by hand, and if you couldn't see and hear the squeeze brake calipers, you'd swear this thing had skids. I have come to know the Tornado pretty well since it was built, and as usual, it didn't disappoint.

After a couple of rides on the Tornado, I went back down the midway for a ride on the Teddy Bear junior coaster. The Teddy Bear has really broken in nicely since it opened a few years ago. I remember when the ride was new, and it was extremely noisy because the track tolerances were almost too tight for the flanged-wheeled train. Now it's much quieter, a little faster, and it has a lovely white structure with bright blue track and trim. It's a much better ride than the Allan Herschell oval thing it replaced. The Allan Herschell Little Dipper makes kids scared of roller coasters. Rides like the Teddy Bear turn them into life-long fans.

I spent some time loafing around the park and chatting with people I know. There is a new food stand on the midway side of the banquet hall that features funnel cakes, ice cream, and french fries. I opted for the funnel cake with strawberry topping. "That will be $3," noted the person running the stand.

I was a bit taken aback by this. "$3.00??" I quizzed, pointing at the sign on the booth. The seller detected that something was amiss, and detailed the charges.

"That's $2.50 for the funnel cake, and $0.50 for the topping. I don't know what the sign says."

I decided it was not wise to argue, and I paid the $3. What the sign said was, "Funnel Cakes - $3 (with topping, $3.50)". I didnt think to check the price for a similar product at Kings Island, but given that I got a discount from Stricker's Grove's price, I'm absolutely certain that I paid less than I would have at Kings Island. And it was a good funnel cake, too!

I was informed that I should go look back in the maintenance area again, as the situation had changed. By this time, I already knew what was going on, though I haven't talked about it here. What changed was that the center load from the new ride had arrived on the back of a flatbed truck, and was now sitting in the field on the open side of the property. I guess I should talk a little about 'it' here. Since a picture is worth a whole bunch of words, here are the obligatory photos.

Okay, so perhaps you still don't recognize those pieces as a ride. Around here, those ride pieces are somewhat well known, mostly for the piece that isn't there, but even among enthusiasts familiar with the piece, it isn't necessarily obvious. After all, how often do we see rides in a state of such total disassembly? And this one is rendered even less obvious by an elaborate scenery package, a painted and illuminated back-stop.

The ride is called a Hully-Gully, and this one was built in 1972 in Germany by Heinrich Mack, GmbH, and imported by Mickey Hughes. The ride is a spectacular piece, with a very large tilted platform, and a large round disc with 20 passenger tubs on it. The ride action is similar to that of a Chance Trabant or Casino, though, again, with a tilted base platform. In the last photo, you can see how the base of the turret is built to rotate counter-clockwise as the ride gondola rotates clockwise off the top of the arm, driven by the two drive tires at the base of the turret. The upper arm of the turret rises up at a significant angle. And finally, the most famous part of the ride, the top half of a voluptuous Fiberglas woman, rotates on the top of the assembly.

This particular Hully-Gully, of course, is the Schwabinchen ride from Cedar Point. It's obvious that it is Cedar Point's old ride if only because there are very few Hully-Gully rides in North America to begin with, fewer still are named Schwabinchen, and I think this is the only one with this decoration. I talked briefly with a gentleman who apparently has some connection with Stricker's Grove, and he confirmed that it is the Cedar Point ride, and that the famous decoration will be coming down in November after Cedar Point finishes using her as a Halloween decoration. He also indicated that Stricker's Grove isn't entirely sure where the ride is going to fit in the park, and noted that the ride does need a bit of work. So far, the Crazy Daisy ride has been mostly removed, but it is a much smaller ride. The Schwabinchen is a very large ride, perhaps comparable in size to the Tip-Top. I suspect that a lot of equipment is going to move around at Stricker's Grove, in order to make room for this new ride.