Top Thrill Dragster 2022 Status
I'm gonna guess the hole is there to bury all the hopes and dreams of a reverse spike. >:)
-Adam G- The OG Dragster nut
Frog Hopper King:
No one likes it when someone's resume is slammed in our faces, good thing you have never done that before, because that would be really annoying.
Wait, I've made three posts in a row, minutes apart, waiting for someone to respond to something I said? Yeah, I didn't think so either.
And the dude is still creating new accounts so he can call me more names.
Jeff - Advocate of Great Great Tunnels™ - Co-Publisher - PointBuzz - CoasterBuzz - Blog - Music
Kevinj:
Brandon, do you consider yourself an expert engineer at this point in your career?
According to Malcom Gladwell's 10,000 Hour Rule, I think I may have some expertise in an extremely narrow niche of a subset of a field of engineering. But that's a niche I've been working in for more than a decade. Most of us are "experts" at at least a few things, for what it's worth.
But, no, I wouldn't call myself an "expert engineer" at this, or any point in my career. I'm not even sure what the hell that means. That'd be like a doctor considering themselves an "expert doctor". An "expert doctor" of what? Literally all of medicine? Like medicine, engineering is a vast discipline.
Regardless, of course any supposed expertise I may have is completely useless here. Which is why I couched my opinion in plenty of qualifiers, like "if" and "doesn't appear to", etc. That someone would take that statement as me claiming to be "an expert" shows a profound lack of comprehension and reasoning.
Also, it's been my experience around engineers that those most boastful about their breadth of knowledge almost always end up being the most ignorant.
"The more I learn, the less I know."
- Socrates
- Michael Scott
Brandon
This will not occur again as they now have a mysterious "hole" that was engineered which could be utilized to serve this purpose, at your own risk of course.
I mean, a spike is basically confirmed at this point. The station is gone, unload station is gone as well, unprecedented dismantling of Iron Dragon. As far as a "re-imagining" goes, there's only so many things they can do that explains all of this. If all you think is just an LSM conversion at this point in time, you are denying the obvious that more is going than needed to do just an LSM conversion. If it was just an LSM conversion, this thing could have been done by 2023, but with the teaser video released in January, they're hyping up more than just a reopening of this ride "as-is". If they are going to be dropping this much money on fixing the ride, why not advertise it as a new attraction with new elements.
the_wagoner:
If it was just an LSM conversion, this thing could have been done by 2023...
Unless there were some other reason they're not opening TTD2.0 in 2023...
Brandon
Wild Mouse had already been delayed once, and delaying it again wouldn't make much sense in favor of a new attraction. The reason why TTD didn't open in 2023 as the same ride with LSMs (not being advertised as a new ride) is because it's opening in 2024 as a new attraction. if you're spending $10M+ on a ride, logically why would you reopen it as the same ride with only adding LSMs instead of spending a few more million to create a new attraction that you can advertise as such?
A few pages back some folks commented something to the effect that they had never seen CP marketing folks be deliberately misleading in terms of teasers about an upcoming attraction.
FWIW, the Wikipedia article on Gatekeeper quotes an Annie Zelm, CP marketing, as acknowledging that CP deliberately put out misdirection on Gatekeeper. And you can follow the link in references to an archived news article with her full quote from way back then.
So there is precedent for it.
But the point of that misdirection is to create a positive speculation, not to disappoint their fans. If they were specifically trying to misdirect with the "New Formula For Thrills" video and you speculate that Cedar Point is the source for the spike rumor, why would they waste their time with going out of their way to disappoint their fans? Seems like a poor use of the marketing budget.
I'm not speculating that CP is the source of the spike rumor.
I do think it is within the realm of possibility that they dont want to spill the beans on the spike yet, if in fact there is going to be a spike (or anything else beyond LSM retrofit), so as not to distract too much from the new boardwalk this year, and to save any exciting news about TTD to create a splash and buzz sometime closer to TTDs reopening, i.e. late this year or early next year.
Hence, they might have been motivated to downplay any possible connection between ID track removal and 2024 new attraction, for example.
Any chance you could circle that for me and put an arrow showing where the hole is?
the_wagoner:
...if you're spending $10M+ on a ride, logically why would you reopen it as the same ride with only adding LSMs instead of spending a few more million...
And if you're going to spend $15 million on that, why not spend $20 million to increase the top hat height? And if you're spending $20 million, why not spend $25 million to put a loop on that bad boy? And if you're spending $25 million, why not spend $30 million and have the entire structure covered in gold leaf? And if you're spending $30 million, why not spend $31 million and put a Coke Freestyle Oasis on that loop?
I mean, it just makes sense, given the park has an infinite budget, just like in sandbox mode on RCT.
DA20Pilot:
FWIW, the Wikipedia article on Gatekeeper quotes an Annie Zelm, CP marketing, as acknowledging that CP deliberately put out misdirection on Gatekeeper.
I assume you're referring to this (emphasis mine)?
As part of GateKeeper's marketing campaign, Cedar Point released several teasers on their "OnPoint" blog.[8] Posters scattered throughout the park and on Cedar Point's website included taglines such as, "How do you recover from a Disaster?", "WildCat is no match for this creature" and "Not even a Jumbo Jet soars like this!" Each poster had a black background with five blue wings, hinting at the ride's logo.[9][10][11] Annie Zelm, a marketing representative for the park, stated that some of the clues on the website were intended to mislead readers.
Putting out "red herring" clues is not in any way the same thing as flat out lying about something.
Brandon
Regarding that giant hole, it appears to be lined up more with the brake side than the launch side, at least to me.
DA20Pilot:
Hence, they might have been motivated to downplay any possible connection between ID track removal and 2024 new attraction, for example.
"We don't comment on future plans" would have kept it vague and unconfirmed, which would have helped fuel speculation and interest, at least among the tiny group of people who follow this stuff. But so far as we can tell, that's not what Tony said.
Brandon
@djDaemon - I'm assuming he's talking about the area behind ID's station, surrounded by sheet piling... that has a piece of green machinery sitting inside it.
(EDIT) I may have missed a bit of sarcasm on the part of djDaemon.
C Hertling - Yep, I see the cofferdam, I'm just trying to ascertain its location. It seems to be, as you said, near ID's station, which seems further from the launch track than I'd expect, but it's difficult to get a sense of scale on that thing to see how far it extends.
Brandon
Regarding that giant hole, it appears to be lined up more with the brake side than the launch side, at least to me.
Time to start a new rumor then: They’re switching the side the launch is on. 🤣
Didn't they or someone specifically say they were having a drainage issue with the lagoon there? This would line up with work of that nature
Closed topic.