Some Thoughts About Maverick

It would be nice if Intamin re-designed the portion of track beginning from the tunnel exit, up until the overbanked 92 degree turn.

If the “brake-hill” was lowered and less steep, and the helix leading up to the S-curve was wider, I wonder if they could replace the S-curve with a more elongated Heartline Roll (with a greater diameter) similar to Velocicoaster.

The Heartline Roll was supposed to be one of the best parts of the ride.

I think if they thought that was an option, they would have done it back when they took out the original heartline roll instead of putting in the S-curve.

Maybe. But as far as I know that type of heartline roll did not exist at the time on any ride anywhere. I think the goal was to get the ride open as quickly as possible at that point.

I'm still honestly not sure how much of a difference in the ride experience keeping the heartline role would've made, but now I'm trying to think of any instances of a single element making or breaking that particular roller coaster.

Re: that part of Maverick though, have the water bombs been working at all so far this year?

They've been removed.

And Maverick is still awesome :)

The water cannons provided plenty of amusement when operating with a wind out of the west. Unsuspecting pedestrians traversing the stone bridge would fall victim to a mist or even at times a soaking of that yukky water.

! said:

If the “brake-hill” was lowered and less steep, and the helix leading up to the S-curve was wider, I wonder if they could replace the S-curve with a more elongated Heartline Roll (with a greater diameter) similar to Velocicoaster.

The Heartline Roll was supposed to be one of the best parts of the ride.

The brakes on the existing hill already didn't slow the train sufficiently such that the heartline was safely negotiable, so lowering the hill would require even stronger brakes. As for the helix, it already extends to the very edge of the pond/bridge, so there's no room to make it wider without massive changes. I mean, you'd basically have to alter either SRF or WC - or both - to make this happen.

Maverick is already a very popular world class coaster. The enormous financial investment you're proposing would never see a positive ROI, so the park would be needlessly pissing away money they could put to better use on future projects.

If the water cannons soaking people was amusing, Imagine if they did extend mavericks track right through snake rivers splash. I'd watch that all day. Well maybe a few times before moving on.

I'm also kind of curious how the heartline roll was allegedly one of the best parts of the ride, when as far as I can remember, it was removed long before anything other than water dummies were test riding it.

The legend is that Sandor rode it and came off the ride saying there is no way it can stay.

I love Maverick exactly the way it is. And the world now has Velocicoaster to experience the heartline now that Intamin finally figured it out. Win-win.

djDaemon said:

The brakes on the existing hill already didn't slow the train sufficiently such that the heartline was safely negotiable...

Cartwright said:

The legend is that Sandor rode it and came off the ride saying there is no way it can stay.

I'm glad you say legend, because I'm pretty sure that's all it is. I doubt it was an issue of safety. They can model every force on the human body long before they start cutting steel. The more plausible explanation, as I understand it, is that they were not happy with the wear and tear on the axels and bearings caused by such rapid changes in direction. I saw it run with the original track, and while it was a fast roll, it did not appear intolerable.

To be clear, I was not referring to rider safety, poor word choice on my part. I was merely pointing out that the trains were going too fast to begin with, so lowering the hill would necessitate stronger braking force to achieve the same velocity.