Maverick on insane coaster wars

I guess I'm not watching enough, haha. Was vortex featured for most painful coaster ever? (If so, it gets my vote!)

^Lol funny story about Vortex. I had a friend who hated roller coasters. Upon asking him why he told me that the first coaster he had ridden was Vortex and he vowed never to ride another coaster again lol. We worked at CL together and I talked him into trying coasters again. The first ride we got on was Magnum, after that I couldnt keep him off coasters lol.

SteveH said:
Well, when a park solicits votes...

Again, it's a popularity contest, not a scientific evaluation of each coaster's merits. Soliciting votes is exactly what one should do to win a popularity contest.

MagnumAllDay said:
^Not true if I remember correctly Volcano and I305 (Kings Dominion) Diamondback, Vortex and the Beast (Kings Island) Hydra (Dorney Park) Leviathen (Canadas Wonderland) Afterburn and Intimidator (Carowinds) have all been featured.

And if I recall, I305 has the best overall score yet this season. I'm not seeing any real bias towards Cedar Point in the voting, if anything, being a coaster at Cedar Point would detract from the ranking because there are so many other great coasters at the park.

GateKeeper will be later featured, and I'm pretty confident it won't win it's match up.

You're going to have to wait a while to see whether gatekeeper wins. It won't be on until next Season.

I agree that soliciting votes is a great strategy by the park, why wouldnt you take advantage of the marketing opportunity and who can blame them for it? but in the end it can make coasters a bit dissapointing if it is so hyped up without truly being the best.. Like magnum (not saying it was on the show) but other than then the history I don't see why people find it a better ride than rides with similar size, speeds, and layout. On the other end of the spectrum I went into mean streak thinking it would be a horrible/painful experience when in reality it felt like a completely average wooden coaster to me.

This wasn't a typical "popularity" voting style. Every voter could give the ride up to 1000 points. The score is an average of all the voters. The biggest disparity of voting from ride to ride is that you only vote for the ride you rode. So, other than a handful of enthusiasts, most people are only ranking 1 ride. They say they are to compare it to ever other ride you've been on. But, when you vote, you don't even necessarily know what other coasters will be in the show going against the one you rode. And even if you did, not many of the riders will have been on the other coasters. There is no perfect way to set this up.