[Capler]

I know I'm on the road running way ahead of the horse pulling the cart but...

Icon opened this weekend and the reviews are all over the place. UK media, and local enthusiast are pretty much universal in saying the ride misses the mark by being underwhelming, and crawls through the course.

Since this represents Mack's latest, and perhaps greatest, could Icon be a precursor to what we can expect here?

[Capler]

For all the GP knows Carowinds manufactures the roller coasters. I don't think proclaiming the ride as the fastest/longest Mack coaster would make any sense marketing wise.

I agree, but superlatives do capture the attention of the general public. Tallest, fastest, longest in world, US, South East, Carolinas, between DC and Atlanta,....

[RiDeWaRrIoR]

I have also read mixed reviews on their media day stuff! One person said that once the ride "warmned up" it was better. I think our new ride will meet expectations... I would have to do some more on ride POV of icon though, the one I remember it didnt seem bad. I think the ride will be sluggish at times, but I think it will still be an overall fun ride and a great addition to the park!

My friend also sent over an aerial shot of the park today, pretty nice view!

[Capler]

I chuckled at that photo because if looks like it was taken from that plane you always see in the pictures of Fury. It's like someone on the ground taking a picture of Fury going up the lift while someone is sitting on the plane taking a picture of the picture taker.

[Edwardo]

Actually ACE didn't come up with the term Hyper Coaster. Enthusiasts kind of made up their own classifications of coasters and many call Fury 325 a Giga Coaster when it isn't according to ACE.

ACE classifies coasters based on the model of the manufacturer. Because B&M doesn't make Giga Coasters (Intamin does - Mega/Giga Coaster), Fury 325 is classified as a Hyper Coaster as far as ACE is concerned: http://www.bolliger-mabillard.com/product/hyper-coaster. Both Intimidator and Fury 325 are B&M Hyper Coasters.

According to Jeffery Seifert and several other long time ACE peeps the term hyper coaster was first used to describe Magnum in the Roller Coaster magazine when the coaster debuted. He likes to make sure people know that anytime the subject comes up online. ACE may not have officially coined the term but they were the first to use it and publish it.

Also, B&M classify fury, intimidator, etc as Speed Coasters officially.

But it brings home the point, there is no official designation. It’s all marketing superlatives.

“The more you know...”

[RiDeWaRrIoR]

I chuckled at that photo because if looks like it was taken from that plane you always see in the pictures of Fury. It's like someone on the ground taking a picture of Fury going up the lift while someone is sitting on the plane taking a picture of the picture taker.

Haha yea it does! At first I thought it was taken with a drone Its a great picture though! Cool to see everything from this angle from above. To bad we cant really see the construction area that well, but its still a great picture .

[CCookieMonster]

The big plot o dirt actually looks pretty big when you look at that in proportion to the park. I know it's not nearly as big as a plot of land as Intimidator or Fury, but it looks like it'll definitely be in the top 3 largest in the park. Hey, what if it's even better than Afterburn. I'm just excited for our coaster lineup to get upgraded and immediately better.

[Carowindsman]

I was able to go to the park for a little while. More dirt photos

[CCookieMonster]

Thanks so much!

[Rabidfrog]

Honestly, our coaster lineup is actually pretty good. We have:

Goldrusher- a fun family coaster
Woodstock Express- A good starter for the kids looking up at the bigger rides in the park
Hurler- A good enough woodie, not that impressive, but it's actually much faster than it looks, to me atleast
Afterburn- Regarded by many as the best B&M invert in the world
Intimidator- Known as the best hypercoaster by many enthusiasts
FURY 3325- THE GRAND CHAMPION AS THE BEST STEEL COASTER IN THE WORLD!!!
Cyclone- could definitely be better, but holds the record as the first coaster with 4 inversions, so I out it on the list.

I'm sure with the Mack launch coming next year, our lineup will greatly improve and just the park in general. A launch is something we've needed for years but all we need is a world record we can advertise and boom we have ourselves another increase in park visitors and an even better chance of seeing an annual 3 million visitors.

Uhhhh... don’t forget...
Cobra (quickie)
Vortex (... yeah)
Kiddie Hawk (An excellent kid introducer to steel coasters)
Nighthawk - which while not unique in the rollercoaster world, is still a pretty fun ride.

[Justin]

After watching the ICON POV, it sounds wicked rough like any Vekoma. Almost sounded like Nighthawk. We already have a nice lineup of rough coasters in the park so our new Mack should totally fit in fine! BTW, if you didn't know, you can go to First Aid by Chickies & Pete's to get free asprin (or, unrelated, pepto). That's what I end up doing after riding Fury. I really hope our new coaster will be smooth

[arby]

Actually ACE didn't come up with the term Hyper Coaster. Enthusiasts kind of made up their own classifications of coasters and many call Fury 325 a Giga Coaster when it isn't according to ACE.

ACE classifies coasters based on the model of the manufacturer. Because B&M doesn't make Giga Coasters (Intamin does - Mega/Giga Coaster), Fury 325 is classified as a Hyper Coaster as far as ACE is concerned: http://www.bolliger-mabillard.com/product/hyper-coaster. Both Intimidator and Fury 325 are B&M Hyper Coasters.

According to Jeffery Seifert and several other long time ACE peeps the term hyper coaster was first used to describe Magnum in the Roller Coaster magazine when the coaster debuted. He likes to make sure people know that anytime the subject comes up online. ACE may not have officially coined the term but they were the first to use it and publish it.

Also, B&M classify fury, intimidator, etc as Speed Coasters officially.

But it brings home the point, there is no official designation. It’s all marketing superlatives.

“The more you know...”

Excellent. Thank you for that additional info. Like you said, the more you know...

I was also loosely translating what Jeffrey told me as I work closely with him on the ACE census. But, he is one of the public voices for ACE whereas I am just behind the scenes so what he and Tim B tell me are what I follow, which is to cross reference the model with that is on the vendor's site and/or what I get directly from the vendor.

Interesting stuff to talk about.

[Flarsen]

I don’t know if anyone has mentioned it but the WWF queue house is gone

[RW_Fury325]

It was mentioned a few pages back, but thank you for a ground view picture!

[JWitter]

I know this is the wrong spot for this, so remove/move if needed. It also doesn't relate to the topic, but then again neither does the majority of posts here

Maybe you guys have seen these, maybe not, but cool pics of Carowinds past/present

https://www.facebook.com/pg/CLTOVER/pho ... 9962159182