How's it running this year?

In recent years I have seen, or thought, that the speed of WT fluxuate. I have noticed (for sure) that it wasn't running at as "high power" as it had in it's opening year. I just want to know how it has been for people who have ridden it this year and if it continues to be a 'not-as-popular-as-it-could-be' ride, making the line always signifigantly shorter than most other "big" coasters.
Thanks for any feedback.
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You haven't ridden Top Thrill Dragster until you have been on a rollback.

It seems to be running slower and not as high on the spikes this year compared to last year. Opening day it was closed for most of the day and doesn't seem to run very far up the front spike, only making about 270 degrees of rotation. It make almost 360 degrees of rotation on the back spike.

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C.P. Visits in 2003: 20
Dragster Rides: 18 (2 Front Row)
128.47 Miles Away From Cedar Point

There was damage caused to the electrical system of the ride due to a power surge. Whether or not that damage has anything to do with the speed of the ride is beyond me.

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- Mason -
168.43 miles away from Cedar Point
*** This post was edited by Mason 5/10/2004 10:18:57 PM ***

Damage, eh? And how did you arrive at that conclusion?

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Jeff - Webmaster - GTTP - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

And when did it happen? I was unaware of this...

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BUSH-CHENEY 2004
"Democrats talk about getting things done. Republicans get things done."

If there was damage, it would affect the ride since it s powered by very powerful magenets that are revered back and forth.

The RUMOR that I heard was that First Energy was playing power games over the weekend and that was causing problems for Dragster, and for Wicked Twister which has the same power feed (ever notice that the speakers on the Dragster platform hum whenever Wicked Twister launches?) Anyway, if that is true, then it makes perfect sense that Wicked Twister was out of service on Sunday.

Remember, that's a rumor with absolutely no verified basis in fact. Remember also that First Energy is the company that blacked out the entire Great Lakes region last summer.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Wow, I never knew about the humming thing. I'll have to check that out this year...

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BUSH-CHENEY 2004
"Democrats talk about getting things done. Republicans get things done."

Yeah, the humming is true. Also, I've heard that the MF lift hill lights suffered damage in the power sense. This all makes perfect sense on why the rides were down over opening weekend. It sucks that WT was possably damaged and the TTD too. (I don;t care about ride lights)

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RideMan said:
Remember, that's a rumor with absolutely no verified basis in fact. Remember also that First Energy is the company that blacked out the entire Great Lakes region last summer.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

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I wouldn't doubt they did something stupid again...
*** This post was edited by Kyle Dersch 5/12/2004 6:27:45 AM ***

Yeah, it would be pretty crappy of them. I do believe they even get free advertisement from Cedar Point, as well as a crap load of power that Cedar Point buys from them.

Also, Rideman, how do you know that they have the same power feed? I would guess that Cedar Point would do the power feed in blocks, bigger blocks for more spread out areas and smaller blocks for more congested areas. So considering that TTD is on the other side of the park, I don't believe that they would be in the same block. But, the humming is something that confuses me. My only guess would be, if not divided into blocks, the whole park would be with one feed. Someone who has been in the park when has power has gone out, could probally answer this. And lastly, now that I think about it, each ride has there own generator.

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And that's the way the cookie crumbles...
2004 STATS: Races for the sky's: 0 Kick the sky's: 0 Forces felt: 0

...Because it's RideMan, man. He knows all :-P

If I recall what has been said here, there are 6 main power lines that lead to Cedar Point. Two summers ago power went out to certain parts of the park due to one of those lines being hit. The 6th line was installed in 2002 (or '01) specifically for Wicked Twister and (unbeknowing to us) Dragster.

I know that when Wicked Twister was installed, Cedar Point installed "the world's longest extension cord" down the Causeway (Monty Jasper's words) to power it. When Dragster was installed, power was run down the beach towards the Breakers from Wicked Twister to feed Dragster's pumps.

How do I know that they share the same power supply line? Because Monty Jasper said so. Unfortunately, now I can't find the place where I read it...it might have been the TTD construction diaries that seem to be missing from the CP site right now...

Incidentally, the top power user in the park was Thunder Canyon; Dragster may have replaced it as the top power-user.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

When I hopped on WT on Saturday, 5/8, we were launched, up the front spike, then came to a sudden halt just ahead of the station platform. It took a few minutes to switch over to manual mode, then we were cranked back into the station.

I don't think this had anything to do with the power situation, as they had the ride back up within 15 minutes.

What would be interesting to know is that since WT and TTD are on the same dedicated line, do they launch each ride consecutively or concurrently?

Neil
As a response to the last part of your post, WT and TTD launches are completely independent of each other. *** Edited 5/13/2004 6:45:46 PM UTC by dbdbdbdbdb2003***

No one was suggesting otherwise...

Anyway, the only change in the cycle I can see is that the first backward pass has been backed off to the point of not being interesting at all. That's a bummer. The second forward and second reverse are still about full power in terms of height achieved.

Wicked Twister requires a lot of current for very brief periods of time whenever it launches.

By comparison, because of the design of the launch system, Dragster requires a large amount of current to operate the pumps on a continuous basis, whether it is launching or not. Dragster converts electricity to mechanical energy, which it stores in the accumulators until the ride launches.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Topthrill420, each ride has it's own generator? Huh? News to me.

WT and TTD are on the same power feed. I wish I had a diagram of the power feeds to the park though. I don't think the rides pull that much power they need to be launched sepearatly...it'd just be stupid. If any one knows of a such diagram, i'd like a copy. :P And I heard they were changing all the fuses for the parking lot in the season pass center...so a power surge may have happened. But WT being down like this is really odd, its never had a problem like stopping short and stuff unless it is a control issue with the auto-park or something weird.

I can confirm what Kyle said about replacing all 500 fuses for the parking lot in the Season Pass center. ;) I.....just can't say anymore....

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Rihard 2000 said:
Topthrill420, each ride has it's own generator? Huh? News to me.

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I don't know about every ride, but do know some. During the black out last year I read that Raptor has a generator to get the emergency cart up the lift hill and unload the passengers. MF also has one to get a train over the lift hill. That's what I remember. I don't think they have generators that are capable to operate the rides normally though.