Hands Up on Dragster

Your mom is to fat to ride TTD. said:I won't start another topic for this. Is it true that TTD is getting kicker wheels on the tophat so there aren't any more rollbacks? I thought it was made up but I'm starting to hear it more and more.

Holy crap I'm sick of hearing this! Just hearing it more and more from people who don't have "connections" to the park is no reason to believe it. And even if they did have "connections", I doubt they're John, Monty, or anyone who WOULD know. They'll throw out the usual "Oh, but my source is real reliable!", but it's a crock.

I don't mean to go off on you Zach (and I'm not), I'm just amazed that people still want to believe this. Dragster is NOT getting drive wheels at the crest to help prevent rollbacks. There's no solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

I usually keep my hands in front of me until we're at the top going forwards...or going backwards :) whoot!

TTD 120mph said:

I don't mean to go off on you Zach (and I'm not), I'm just amazed that people still want to believe this. Dragster is NOT getting drive wheels at the crest to help prevent rollbacks. There's no solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

That made me laugh, considering you count your own rollbacks in your signature line.... That is funny since you mention no solution to a problem that does not exist, Proposed solution is Kicker wheel, stated problem is rollbacks. Yet you count rollbacks, so unknowingly you accept the problem.

In my next paragraph I'll mention I agree with you, but the no problem thinking is also what got Davis Besse into the trouble it had in 2001-2. I remember reading an article that made an interesting statement. I used to have it on hand now I don't but the jist of the article was complacency. Davis Besse officials knew about the reactor problems for years, but the problems became so frequent, they became "Normal" to the normal day to day operations... So they proposed no solutions to a problem that did not exist but they indeed acknowledge the problem existed.

I consider the rollbacks a problem, but one from a bad engineering standpoint. Obviously there is no real safety issue (unless you have an irrational fear of falling backward for 350 feet{given the incline to the tower})... so I do agree though they do not need to install kicker wheels, I think it is now considered a perk of the ride. Yes, it is complacent thinking but CP is not running a Nuclear reactor either...

What does my rollback count have to do with this. I count them because it's showing how many times I've been lucky to experience a rare occasion. The simple fact is, rollbacks ARE NOT a problem. Every launch coaster does it from time to time. It's going to happen. If they really wanted to fix it, they would already have some kind of system on the very first launch coaster (being Xcelerator). And there already exists a solution to rollbacks. And I'm sure it was thought up before the prototype was even built. They're called the launch brake fins. Now if rollbacks were creating some extremely dangerous hazards to some kind of mechanism, then I could see this as a slight possibility. But the whole coaster was designed to handle rollbacks. And thus there is no reason for kicker wheels at the top. It's a waste of money and resources.

Exactly. I agree with it being a waste of money and the fact that rollbacks are not a problem, I just think they are part of bad engineering. Every coaster will rollback, they just are not supposed to though unless the design calls for it, such as Wicked Twister, or Face-Off...

Just want point out again though that if a person believes rollbacks are a problem than indeed kicker wheels would be a solution to that problem as well as stronger launches, but the wheels as wasteful as they would be would be the safer solution.

Personally I do want to increase my 8 rollbacks count.

And the only help they would be is if the train we're to pass a certain point on the crest. Other than that, there are more than one point at which a train will rollback. Sometimes it won't even make it to the top or the crest. So there goes that "solution".
Plus, with the speed the train would be going and with how gravity, inertia and so on play part, those wheels would have to be pretty HEAVILY treaded and put A LOT of vertical pressure to apply enough pushing/pulling force to get the train over. And that right there inhibits the launch aspect in that it then acts as a brake then aiding in possible rollbacks if and when it malfunctions. So right there, the solution becomes a problem.

My hubby always jokingly tells me to put my arms up and cup my hands for resistence, to get a roll back. But he said he actually did it once and it was painful.

I don't really see rollbacks as a problem anymore. They are good with managing the weight on the trains with weather conditions now and it is harder than it used to be to roll back. Adding anything else to the equation will just cause more breakdowns. As TTD said this would only really cause even more rollbacks than before. It would act as a brake most of the time.

I have yet to get a rollback, but then again I haven't "tried" ha.

It helps if you try to think, "S-L-O-W" as hard as you can. I mean, like nosebleed hard.

Working in that zone countless times and responding to medical calls, I would see that sometimes when people threw their hands up at the last second actually caused their hands to hit them in the face causing a bloody nose. Saw it and responded about 3 times in one Summer, and that was just me.

I never really enforced it, unless the hands up involved a camera, at which point was a huge safety issue. If that was the case I ensured the video was deleted, the only decent way to prevent it happening again.

^SImilar thing happened to me on MF. First drop, I had my hands up and quickly tried to put them down so I could grab my phone in my pocket and my hand smacked the car hard...I went home with a bruised hand ha

Well that's what you get for trying to break a no camera policy.:)

I always seem to put my hands up on Dragster. It's not always straight up but more like superman. It doesn't put too much resistance on them.

^^ha i didn't want to take a picture, my phone was falling out! I lost my keys on millennium once :(

I don't think booster wheels need to be added to the top, I remember in '03 watching a train roll back five times. Then after it did it the sixth time the ride went down.

Only thing I would like to see some progress in fixing is the warm up time, I mean in the morning they only load the first three or four rows. And when its on the ERT, you have to enter the parkat the SC gate, if you enter the main gate, your going to be waiting awhile. I guess call me lucky we only waited 15 mins for the front seat one morning for ERT. :D

^^Ok, then that's fine then.:) And sorry to hear about the keys. I lost my keys one time and if it wasn't for miraculously running into a friend of mine, we wouldn't have gotten home. I then had to have my mom drive me back the next day with my other keys to start my car. Luckily, they ended up finding them during cleaning. Now I always carry 2 sets with one being somewhere completely safe.

And the thing about Dragster in the morning, Daniel, is that it's required no matter what. It sucks that it takes so long but they start earlier than you might think to get it ready in time. It takes a while for everything to warm up (especially in colder weather) and be fully functional. And that's also why they only load so many rows at a time. They start the system off light, and then build it over the course of an hour or 2 allowing everything to get warmed up.

As for what you said about the ert. Technically Dragster is not on the ert list. It's slated to open with the rest of the park, which is 10:00. Now sometimes they get lucky enough and will open at 9:30 or earlier. Now I don't know what happened when you went thru the Resort Gates but I'm sure you know that normally they open the gates a little before 9 (for platinum pass holders and resort guests only), coral them under Magnum and wait for the anthem. It's the same deal at every entrance and I've never seen Dragster open with ert. So did you get lucky and get on it when it opened before 10:00?

^yeah, the key situation was bad, but ended up being great ha. I live some 2 hours from the park and 3 friends and myself were planning to go and so we get there and my one friend forgets he has to work. So we only rode MF and magnum when he said he had to leave and since we took one car that meant everyone had to leave. We start walking to the car and realize the keys are gone. We file a report and had to wait until they did inspections/matinence . LOng story short, my friend had to call a friend to pick him up and go to work while my 2 friends and I enjoyed the rest of the day at the park :) Oh and my keys were found on MF's loading platform later that night :) ... anyway, 44 days left!

Ha ha, what a hairy situation.:) I only live 1.5 hours away and my mom was furious that she had to take me to get my car!Once we got to the park, she said to get my keys and leave with my car. But then when we got home she must have cooled down because she said "Oh, I guess I could have let you stay a little while and ride some rides." And it was such a beautiful day too. So the fact that we drove all that way just to be in the park for 10 minutes and then drive back without being able to ride anything only to then be told it would have been ok kinda put me in a bad mood.:)

^Oh wow, that sounds terrible lol. I'd hate to go the point without riding anthing