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"Headlights? What headlights?"
This is...what...Sunday? Yeah, I guess so. I got up and got dressed, reminded the guys that the hotel breakfast would end at 10:30, and I think we barely made it. Beech Bend Park isn't a terribly long drive from Evansville, and we had been warned that Beech Bend Park was not exactly an all-day facility. Accordingly, we took our time. The previous 42 hours had taken their toll on us. Something about a boat, a new world, pilgrims...and three wood coasters whose names all start with "The". I also remember it being insanely hot. We took our time getting out. There are a couple of Kentucky Parkways that run almost directly to Bowling Green. We proceeded to the Owensboro area and opted to stop for lunch before we got on the last parkway. We really didn't know where we wanted to stop, but we did want to get some lunch. Then I saw a sign that triggered a distant memory, and I knew where to stop.
See, I live in Columbus, Ohio, which is Test Market, USA. It's also the home of Wendy's International, and as such was the incubator for a lot of fast-food restaurants over the years: Sisters Chicken & Biscuits, Big Bite, Daddy-O's, Rax, White Castle, and G. D. Ritzy's. Apart from White Castle, all of those restaurant chains have failed, but some are less failed than others. I remember finding a Ritzy's still operating in Huntington, WV, and now I've found another one, this time a new location, in Owensboro, Kentucky. It's a fast-food joint that specializes in a diner-style hamburger (as found at Steak & Shake), shoestring french fries, and ice cream. They were never particularly cheap, but the food was always decent, and back in the mid-1980's I ate at them frequently. When I saw this one, it was an obvious option, and Dave and John seemed to approve of it once we got our food.
The approach to Beech Bend Park is a long, windingundulating road through a stand of trees. I know enough about horticulture to tell you that they are trees. I have no idea whether they are beech trees or not. We parked, checked in at the gate, and started into the park. The place reminds me a little of Lakemont Park for some reason, although the appearance and layout are almost, but not quite, entirely different. On entering the park, there is a pond off to the left, and a waterpark off to the right. A basic midway circles the pond, with an interesting collection of portable rides. Just about every ride in the park is trailer mounted or at least portable, including the Reverchon White Water flume ride. The notable exception to this, of course, is what is sure to become the park's signature attraction, the Kentucky Rumbler.
Situated next to the flume so that there will probably be plenty of wet seats this summer, the Kentucky Rumbler is instantly recognizable to a student of modern wood coasters as a creation of Great Coasters International. If you couldn't tell by the flowing lines, the tight curves, and the compact footprint, then the Millennium Flyer train would be the next giveaway. It's not fair to either company to compare them like this, but I think there is something to this: The Gravity Group is all about coaster engineering, but Great Coasters International is all about coaster design. Well, you see why I don't think that comparison is entirely fair: The Gravity Guys are great designers, and Great Coasters coasters are superbly engineered. But when you see a ride like Kentucky Rumbler you are not initially impressed with its sheer size, its complexity, or how fast the trains are tearing around the course. You are instead immediately impressed with the pure beauty of the ride. It's all wood, in a fresh, golden-brown color, piled in a whole series of graceful, overlapping curves. This looks like a fun ride.
And "fun" is what it is all about. I took a seat near the back of the train, and very soon we were off. The ride starts with a curve right out of the station along the ride's exit ramp, heading for the base of the lift hill. The train is a beautiful piece of engineering, a thoughtful compromise between a classic 1920's Harry Traver design, and the modern requirements of ASTM F 2291, built to take advantage of the engineering advances of the past 80 years without sacrificing the look and feel of the old rides. The cushions are soft all around, even the seat divider, but nicely supportive. It's tempting to try to grab the rail on the back of the next car to use as a hand-hold, but GCI thoughtfully put that potentially hazardous handhold just out of reach. The seats are secure, but the lack of solid hand-holds is just enough to induce a little bit of unease. The first drop is a swooping creation that comes down in two stages: a gentle, curving drop that then straightens out for the dive to the ground. The neat thing about this is the crossover. At this point in the ride, your brain hasn't really had a chance to establish where the ground is, and the split first drop doesn't help much, because it takes a lot longer to get to the bottom than it logically should. So when you see this hill coming across at an angle, you immediately think that's where you're going, and you're prepared for the twist to the right that will take you there. Except that it's a twist that never comes. Instead you go cruising under that bit of track, not twisting until you get to the bottom. What follows is a series of twisted and interconnected track that I never did quite figure out. After a day and a half of riding The Voyage it is kind of hard to be objective about Kentucky Rumbler. They cannot be compared directly because they are very different in every possible way. The Kentucky Rumbler compares favorably to Thunderhead, and is easily identified as a small Thunderhead. I don't think it is quite as long, but it shares the high-energy layout, quick pacing, and "first of all, be fun" design that makes Thunderhead a winning ride. A ride on the Kentucky Rumbler is not something to be endured, survived, championed, toughed out, or beaten. A ride on the Kentucky Rumbler is something to be enjoyed, savored, and hopefully repeated many times.
Unfortunately, "repeating many times" is going to be a rather annoying exercise with this ride. The exit goes down a bizzarre series of ramps alongside the track much like the Knoebel's Twister or more infamously the Darien Lake Predator. At the bottom, instead of ending with a 15' path to the midway, the fenced path turns left and snakes across the back of a building, then drains into the back of a new combo facility. The building contains an on-ride photo sales booth, a set of rest rooms, a gift shop, and a snack bar. Although it is a new building, it has a classic style to it, including a pressed metal ceiling, and a broad front porch lined with rocking chairs. Because of the annoying lack of gates or other openings in the exit path fence, through this building is your one and only exit. And it's a long walk back down the midway to get back to the entrance.
It is actually a shorter walk to get to another of Beech Bend's coasters, the Looping Star. It is a Pinfari ZL-42 which I had actually ridden before. Beech Bend bought the ride from Amusements of America, who had toured with it for several years after importing it from Spain. It is designed to run with three trains, but Beech Bend has discarded all three of the original trains and had a new one built. I don't know who designed the new train, but quite frankly, it stinks. The seats seem to be closer to the floor, and the front of the car seems closer to the seat, so there is significantly less legroom, and the seating position is significantly more cramped than I remember from any of my previous ZL-42 rides...either on this machine when it was with A of A, the Ray Cammack Shows machine, or the one "permanently" installed at Oaks Park. The result of all this is that while the ride is just as good as it ever was, but with the insanely cramped cars the ride is downright painful. I've ridden much worse rides, but this was by far the worst ride of the weekend.
In the remaining time before dinner, I traded off with various groups and rode a few of Beech Bend's unusual flat rides. The park has an electric dark ride running classic Pretzel cars similar to the ones that ran on Le Cachot at Kennywood. It was a classic dark ride, and I was not terribly impressed by it. I rode the Scat 2 and while the forces are quite strong, the ride isn't quite as bad as it looks. Actually the strongest forces I've felt on any ride were on the Gravitron. I hadn't ridden one before, though I'm quite familiar with the ride. That thing pushes harder than a Force 10.
The event commenced with dinner in the picnic pavilion. It was outsourced, apparently, to a barbeque company which did a remarkable job, although there were some problems with the beverages and for a few minutes it looked like the bananna pudding...the one item that had been heavily promoted in the event flyer...was going to run out. I think the park and the caterer were a little unprepared for the eating habits of coaster enthusiasts. I heard something howl behind me, which immediately brought out my geek side. They were using an integrated PA speaker with a built-in wireless microphone receiver, and naturally they set the speaker up at one end of the pavilion and then stood in front of it with the microphone. Umm...whoops! A little knob twiddling brought things under control. We were given the warm welcome, and Jeff Pike from GCII answered a few questions. It was only a short wait before we were released to the coaster.
When I got back to the Kentucky Rumbler the headlights had been turned on. Headlights? Yes, headlights. I had seen some concept drawings that indicated something like a sealed beam light clamped to the grillework on the front of the train. But that's not how they did it. Instead, the train has a pair of high intensity LED lights actually mounted below track level, on the front end of the car support beam. So when the lights are off, they are totally invisible, but when they are on, they are a really neat addition to the train. The event was well attended, with more than 400 people, but lines remained short during ERT. That meant that rides on the Rumbler could be enjoyed again and again and again. At one point I did take a break to go ride the Crazy Mouse coaster. It's the first I have ridden of the spinning mice with the Zamperla cars with the independent lap bars. Those don't make a significant difference in the ride. What does make a huge difference, though, is the excessive braking, bringing the cars to a near stop at a couple of points during the ride, significantly reducing the spinning action in the process.
Mostly I spent the night riding the Rumbler. It's a truly great ride, and a very nice fit for Beech Bend Park. I chatted with one of the maintenance guys (who actually recognized me from my appearance in a TV show that hasn't even aired yet...he is in it as well) and he pointed out that Beech Bend today has a lot in common with Holiday World ten years ago. That's probably a pretty good analogy, and it will be interesting to see what becomes of Beech Bend Park in the next ten years.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
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