Mean Streak- Redone

I'm not sure how the metrics would shake out for the park's ROI, but it would certainly make it a much more enjoyable ride.

I've ridden New Texas Giant and thought the RMC conversion was great.

I used to like Mean Streak when it was new before the 1st drop trims were added. What made the ride good to me was the wildly out of control feel of the ride in the front car. But it beat the daylights out of me (and chipped my front teeth) even when I was much younger.

Once the ride was slowed, everything that was good about it was gone (except the visual appeal of the structure) and what was left is a dragging, rough ride with little fun about it.

I'd like to see it stay, as the structure is a work of art, but something needs to be done with it. Pete's idea about reprofiling for air sounds great, as does RMC track.

I got to ride Goliath at my home park, Six Flags Great America, this year. Aside from being short, it was leaps and bounds my favorite "wood" coaster. Definitely my favorite Woodie now. I can now see why people are drooling over these RMC coasters. Yesterday, I got to ride Hades 360 at Mt.Olympus in the Wisconsin Dells. It was most definitely smoother than Mean Streak as well as fast moving through most of the course. The 360 degree roll works very well and is way smoother than I would have expected from a place where I question their ride maintenance more than 6 flags...

My first ride on Mean streak the same year maverick opened I remember VERY well. My significant other and I at the time felt like we had just be run over...we left the park in the middle of a slow Sunday afternoon and I didn't come back until 3 years later. I've ridden mean streak, using Mean Streak Henry's advice, since then with many different people. No one in my group(s) wants to ride it again, even if its a walk on. I'm with Pete & DA20, at the very least, have RMC re-profile it and topper track it. However, after riding Goliath, I sure hope they'd have RMC go to town on it. It's such a huge structure, they could do something amazing with it.

Side note, After my 1 outing to SFGAM this year, which I haven't been to in roughly 4 years prior to this years visit, I remember why I HATE that place, especially compared to CP.

I never liked the idea of mean streak just getting topper track with nothing else done to it. It's such a waste of potential in my opinion.

For years (long before RMC) I had been talking to people about having GCI reprofile Mean Streak to provide a smoother, more thrilling ride. The biggest problem with that, is that GCI avoids the very tall, very fast wooden coasters. Higher speed introduces more vibration. As beautiful as that massive wooden structure is, those vibrations will tear it apart. RMC, on the other hand, would have no issue going as massively tall as Mean Streak (and taller) but they are, in reality, making a hybrid steel coaster. While I have no issues with CP calling upon RMC to update Mean Streak, I would really hate to see them throw needless inversion into the ride. It has so much potential as it sits now, but it needs something to prevent it from shaking itself apart. We also must consider than RMC, using the steel box track, will result in higher friction causing much of the potential speed to be lost by the end of the ride. Texas Giant is a perfect example of this, as they added an extra 10 feet of height to the ride and it still comes into the brakes relatively slowly. On the other hand, this could be the opportunity to bring Mean Streak back into the record books by adding 30ft surpassing RMC's biggest (187ft Wildfire in Sweden) which would in turn, help maintain that speed.

In reality, the ride needs steel in the structure to help alleviate the wear, and needs to be profiled to bring excitement back to the design. This will reduce the maintenance costs and increase ride-ability, both of which are necessary if the ride is going to survive much longer.

The Topper Track I suggested will keep Mean Streak a traditional wooden coaster while drastically reducing vibrations and improving structural integrity. I wouldn't want to see the box track on Mean Streak as it would no longer be a wood coaster, but I would love to see CP build a RMC box track coaster from the ground up in addition to Mean Streak, with all the elements RMC is famous for.

I'm sure it's been said, but the problem with the Topper Track is that unless you do some serious reprofiling, the layout remains the same relatively boring layout it's always been. I know it's frequently suggested that the ride becomes significantly better with no trims on the first drop, but at the same time, it doesn't, it just means that you're moving fast enough that the bumpiness is smoothed out a bit.

Lightning Rod at Dollywood has me even more so drooling for an RMC conversion of this ride. Imagine shooting up Mean Streaks lift at 40mph and getting some ridiculous airtime over the crest. Followed by air time hills, over banks, double/triple or quadrouple downs.. That ride will use Topper track and will have 0 inversions. Just because its an RMC does not mean it will have inversions.

Mean Streak has so much potential to be a great ride once again and a capacity machine. Right now, its just slow, boring and painful.

Pete said:

The Topper Track I suggested will keep Mean Streak a traditional wooden coaster while drastically reducing vibrations and improving structural integrity.

Pete, with the Topper track, would it be possible for Cedar Point to pull off a Loop in a wooden coaster If they wanted to do so? I was never a fan of SOB, but I loved the layout and the fact that it had a loop in it. The ride was very painful in my opinion, so when they tore it down, I jumped for joy! However, I still want somebody to one day pull off a Loop in a wooden roller coaster structure.

I would imagine they could pull off a loop, built in the same fashion as the SOB loop. I doubt that would ever happen though.

Looking at what has been done with other Topper Track coasters (Outlaw Run) an inversion is definitely possible, but a vertical loop would remain in question

Both Outlaw Run and Goliath at SFGAm use topper track and have inversions. So there is no question that they can't use topper and include inversions. Personally, I would rather just insane overbanks, and airtime over unneeded inversions.

A true vertical loop? Worse case i could see them using Iron Horse track for the loop and switch back to topper after. No real engineering issue there.

The big difference between a vertical loop and a corkscrew lies in what you are asking the train to do. The loop on Son of Beast was as large or larger than the loop on Rougamanshee. The reason it was so enormous was that it was the smallest loop the train could fit through. In the top of a vertical loop you are putting a considerable pitch between the cars, and there aren't a lot of train designs that can easily handle that. With a Corkscrew, you are stretching that out and the limiting factor tends to be the roll rate instead.

And even that isn't too awful. Back before the turn of the millennium, a couple of the Gravity Guys had worked out how to do it with a stock PTC train.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Was at Kentucky Kingdom this past weekend. Ended up buying a season pass for next year for $60 which includes parking and soft drinks. Besides those reasons, my two main reasons for buying their pass was because I am really excited to ride Storm Chaser since it will be my first ride on an RMC conversion so I can get a taste of how good MS could be plus, Lightning Run is amazing. It makes Maverick seem tame.

New top 3 coaster list for me is 1. The Voyage, 2. Banshee and 3. Lightning Run.

Has anyone noticed what Knott's is doing with Ghostrider? Wow! This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see happen with MS! And just might?!

Do you have more information other than they are doing work on it? I haven't seen anything pop up recently.

In a RMC conversion era, it seems GCI has stepped up their game a bit. Long known in the industry for refurbishing wooden coasters, GCI has been elected to completely retrack the ride. All of the rails are currently being completely removed. While the basic layout will remain, brand new running rails and Millenium Flyer trains will be installed. It's not clear to what extent GCI will update the course in regards to angles, banking, structure, and the like. Head over to yellscape for visuals.

Ugh. Millennium Staplers.

It will be nice to have the track reinforced a bit.

People said the would not change mantis to a footless. They did.

People said that we should keep disaster transport.

Only a matter of time before we see Mean streak redone.

A footless roller coaster?