2003 video footage of Dragster?

Thabto said:

I was just watching a clip on Youtube from Dragster's media day. When were the yellow and green lights added to the tower? And it didn't say "Arms down, head back and hold on". Were those extras not ready on opening day that year?

Definitely not. I visited the park one of the 2 weekends after opening day, which was just prior to the weekend of the tire incident. The lights on the tower were not all installed and the ones that were didn't work. The Christmas tree at the launch was working and so was the audio, but I can't remember if they were running 4 or 5 car trains. They also were still trying to figure out how many trains they could run (6 didn't ever seem to work).

I'm guessing all of the theme elements were never in place at the same time, since the engine and tires were removed less than a month after it opened.

If I remember right, it was almost July before they went to 5 cars. I was leaving late one night and encountered a forklift sneaking down the midway with a blue car.

My memory is hazy, but I want to say the Finish Line banner may have been the first piece of theming in place as I recall it being visible on the webcams well before the rest of the construction was complete, if only because I recall having a reaction to how goofy it initially looked by itself.

I have a video that I put together from the first season which shows different length cars, engines, extra seats, spoilers, no spoilers, smoke, no smoke, workers working under tents, even a shot of Sandor walking down the midway on Media Day. Trivia: although parts of it were shot 4:3 and parts were shot 16:9, it is the first video project I ever completed in 16:9 (I started shooting widescreen in the summer of 2003).

The problem is, I don't have any legal way to share it, because it is cut to a well-known piece of music for which I don't have clearance. Back when I had access to a good sized web server and could serve it myself, I had it online, but now that I don't have that luxury, posting it to Vimeo could cause me some unwanted grief (I don't use YouTube; read their license agreement sometime to find out why).

I'll contact Vimeo and see if I can post it without putting my account at risk.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Dave, did you set that video to this song?

No, I had to pick a car/drag race song. One that is particularly appropriate for an Intamin coaster.

"Shut Down," of course.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

That's right! I remember that video now. It was very well done. Hope we see it again.

~Rob

Bump.

Dave's video never re-surfaced on Vimeo, so I'm guessing he didn't get the necessary approval to post it. That's too bad, because it sounds like it covered a lot of the various drama that accompanied Dragster's first month or so of operation.

The Sean Flaharty media day video isn't a bad one, but right now that is just about it other than short newscast bits.

I guess there is some irony in the fact that Cedar Point's most complicated ride debuted before the age of widespread streaming media on the Internet.