Tornado is a large, flashy Huss manufactured ride that goes by the trade name of Flipper. The ride is pretty much what you’d get if a Round Up and a Tilt-a-Whirl had a baby. The ride spins at variable speeds so sometimes the cars will be pinned facing inward due to the G force while other times the cars will be freely swaying and spinning when the platform is rotating at slower speeds. This ride is owned by Reithoffer Shows and was filmed at the 2010 North Brunswick, NJ Youth Festival. It’s one of two Huss Flipper rides traveling in the US (Europe hoards them all apparently, haha.)
Great American Scream Machine has closed and deconstruction is already underway. Check out the updated Scream Machine Ride Review page for deconstruction photos as they become available. It’s also been basically confirmed that Chang will replace Scream Machine.
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July 5, 2010 UPDATE:
It’s now official, Great American Scream Machine will close for good on July 18th, 2010. According to the Great Adventure Facebook there will be a contest where 25 winners (and a guest of their choosing) will get exclusive ride time on GASM from 10-11:30 pm on July 18th. All you have to do is send in your best scream face! Details can be found here.
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July 2, 2010 UPDATE:
Well, well, well…looks like part one of this rumor, the closing on July 1st part, has been BUSTED. EDIT: The closing date is the 18th!
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June 21, 2010
A big rumor dropped this weekend that the Great American Scream Machine will be closing on July 1st July 18th and will be replaced in 2011 by Chang, the now in pieces stand-up coaster that was all but confirmed for Six Flags Great America. Chang was removed from Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom last season after being at the park since 1997.
So, I might be in the minority here but I think this is awful news! Sure Scream Machine is old and a bit rough but it’s also one of the most intense rides at the park and it’s one of only two megaloopers left (the other being Viper at Six Flags Magic Mountain.) Scream Machine represents the pinnacle of the coaster race where higher, faster and more disorienting were all the rave while comfort and aesthetics were commonly omitted. Hell, Scream Machine was the tallest coaster in the world at one point, only to be supplanted by the 200 foot Magnum XL 200 soon after.
Ride it while you still can folks! You’ve got until the 18th!
EDIT: The Suburban Chicago News website ran an article last week that Six Flags Great America had canceled the proposed coaster and meeting with the local zoning board. Interestingly the online article is now gone and the print version of the paper apparently issued a retraction regarding the article. Hmm…seems like somebody didn’t want this information to be known to us common folk!
Tango is a KMG manufactured spin and puke ride and possibly the only ride to ever seat riders in a standing/floorless configuration. This might sound kind of…uh…painful for guys, but from what I experienced it really isn’t; however it’s still not the most comfortable ride either! The ride itself combines three different motions allowing riders to experience a sort of mid-air ballet from hell. From my own experience, the ride was very disorienting with all kinds of weird direction changes and constant “I have no idea where I’m pointed right now” moments!
The video below was taken at the 2010 North Brunswick Youth Sports Festival in North Brunswick, NJ. The ride is owned by Reithoffer Shows.
Where: Our Lady of Czestochowa; South Plainfield, NJ
Date: 6/1/10
Primary Ride Operator: McDaniel Brothers Shows
The last time I went to this fair back in 2008, it was sort of a dismal looking fair with a ridiculous amount of crowds. I decided to head back this year to check it out again and see if its been improved or what. It took about a half an hour to get there as my GPS decided to take a stupid route after I disobeyed its original, equally dumb route. The fair itself seemed less cluttered but some of the rides haven’t changed. The fair had…
Rave Up (a Trabant owned by Tolve Presentations.)
Gravitron
Scrambler
Tilt-a-Whirl
Euro Bungee
Ferris Wheel
Fun Slide
A myriad of kiddie rides
Some games
Quite a few food stands
Beer
Not too many big rides at this one but they kind of made up for that by running the rides on fairly long cycles. Rave Up, the most likely candidate for the “big ride” status at this fair, had a manual cycle that lasted for about 6 minutes! The ride also had a pretty nice color scheme and a pretty nice light package barring the fact that half the lights on the wheel were out. This is also one of the few Chance Trabant rides that have background flash. Nice all around ride!
To the left of Rave Up was Gravitron which looked OK but could use some touching up on the flash. Although it looks like they may be doing something on the top portion of flash as it had a base coat thing going on. Next to it was a Euro Bungee, you know one of those trampoline things where riders are strapped onto bungee cords. I forget if it was an upcharge or not but I’d guess it was due to the low capacity.
Next to the bungee ride and across from Gravitron was a Big Eli Scrambler. It was a pretty utilitarian looking one with gray sweeps with red highlights, a few light decorations lining the tops of the sweeps along with a florescent light tube adorning each sweep. Hell, it went pretty fast though and that’s all that counts in the end I guess! Tilt-a-Whirl was the next ride down the midway and looked fairly standard with a blue, red and yellow color scheme. Now is it just me or are Tilts tough as heck to get a good picture of?
The final non-kiddie ride at the fair was a Ferris Wheel which didn’t look like a Big Eli model, but I’m not really sure. The ride really didn’t look too bad during the day with its multicolored seats and clean paint job, but at night it looked a little rinky-dink with its Spartan light package. The ride also broke down later on that night causing a worker to scale the support to fix whatever needed fixing near the hub.
A little something interesting was a fund raising event where people payed a donation to smash up a car. Now that’s pretty awesome! Unfortunately they weren’t doing it that night otherwise I might have taken a swing! There was quite a bit of food at this fair including some Polish fare so I got a serving of homemade pierogies which turned out to be pretty darn good. I also got a bag of zeppolies, because no fair journey is complete without a few zeppolies! They also served beer but unfortunately you couldn’t walk around the fair with it.
Here’s a music video of Rave Up:
2020 Update: and again without music, and longer, and in 60fps!
The Chance manufactured Trabant is one of those rides that seems to be custom themed more often than not. Sometimes you’ll see a plain ol’ Trabant, which in turn is themed after a satellite (a weird 1960s one at that,) but more common themes are that of roulette wheels, surfing, and UFOs. However thanks to Tolve Presentations, the owner of this particular Trabant, we can also add a rave party to the mix; a theme that actually kind of works well! This is also one of the few Trabants that actually has some back flash, complete with depictions of people dancing. The lights and color scheme on this ride are also pretty good; if only all the lights worked!
