Raptor Jo's CoasterMania June 5th-7th

Friday June 5th
I was so looking forward to CM this season, maybe because it was my 10th or maybe because I just knew it was going to be an event to remember! :)
I couldn’t understand why my hubby wanted to follow me on his Harley, that is until I saw Roeder Harley Davidson in Sandusky. Seems he had neglected to mention it was bike week and what do you know, it was right in Sandusky! His Harley safe at home, hubby had no choice but to join the CoasterMania fun. We checked into our hotel (and thanks to the aforementioned bike week even our hotel was sold out) and headed to the park early.

It was then we found out we would be treated to CM t-shirt this year. They were pretty cool. I had made my own CM shirt but really like and appreciate the ones they gave us. Even the lanyards were cool.

Of course headed right for Raptor. I swear I was the oldest person in the queue. It seemed like every single kid under the age of 16 was there. I had CM buttons made for the crew so wanted to drop them off. We only rode 1x and then I was busy taking pictures before the social hour. The food was outstanding! There was veggies, cheeses. dips, sausage, hot pockets type things, fruits, chocolate, and drinks. Kudos to the food service people, they went way beyond, everything was outstanding. I met one of my CP buds there Tim, and we had a blast sharing stories about the KI Ride Warriors Weekend.

We then enjoyed the special presentation for Maggies 20th Anniversary. Bryan Edwards had put together a film showing the media hoopla in 1989. John Hildebrandt and Mr. Kinzel spoke with us briefly before Ron Toomer shared with us stories about designing Maggie. His co-designer Lee shared some funny things with us also. When the Q&A time came, naturally we were subjected to that same person who asks a (usually stupid) question/comment without fail. As soon as he stood up there was a mutual groan.

Hubby and I took in the park, and when the buses were about done pulling out, we headed back to Raptor and managed 9 more flights (mouths closed and no front rides) before it was almost time for PM ERT. Mere words can not describe the sworms of muffleheads-OMG! The swarms were so big hubby thought it was smoke and something was on fire! Blech! My shirt was so trashed from those things. Hate em.

We walked thru the Starlight Experience, not really knowing what to expect and wow! It was the coolest thing we had ever seen! I highly recommend you do not miss it!

By law (ok not really law) we would have to ride Maggie for the ERT. It seemed everyone had that same idea at 1st. Dave (Rideman) was with us so naturally had to hit him up with a bunch of technical questions about TTD. The beginning of ERT was pretty crowded, but as the rides progressed there were less and less people and each ride was more and more fun for hubby and I. The trims were off and the rides became more and more intense. Watching the people in front of us around the pretzel turn and during the bunny hill airtime I was literally crying I was laughing so hard.
We got to sing Happy Birthday to Maggie-that was so fun too.
We decided (DUMB move) to skip the final 2 rides and head to Maverick for some ERT. Maverick’s ERT ended up taking us 45 minutes and we got 1 ride. Please do not misunderstand, I said dumb move because honestly we had so much fun on Maggie we could have been content just staying there and then calling it a night. Maverick was fun as always, then we had the LONG walk back to the car-knew should have parked in Soak City-duh.

On the ride back to the hotel we were on the causeway and when we got to First Street I noticed there was a car that looked like it was going to make a left right in front of us. I said wtf before I saw the car was going to definitely going to pull out right in front of us. I hit the horn, hit my brakes and swirved to the right and know that idiot missed hitting us by a matter of inches. My hubby was freaking-I almost had to pull over cause I was shaking so bad. My guess is it may have been a CP employee coming home from Louies. Who ever it was lucky I learned how to drive in NYC-defensive is an understatement. Still that person was a stupid ahole and lucky they didn’t get someone killed. Jerk.

In hotel bed by 1:45-wake up call for 4am. Yikes.

1st day of CoasterMania was so fun (less the drive back to hotel) We couldn’t wait to see how day 2 would go.

Saturday June 6th
Nothing like getting 2 hours sleep and then heading back to the park again. We got coffee on the way (HAD to) and were 2 of about 20 people already there. MF and TTD ERT so when gates opened, we headed to MF. Donuts, coffee and juice awaited everyone! Nice! I ended up doing an interview for some unnamed show.
We rode 4 laps and then headed to TTD, where there was more coffee, juice and donuts! We decided to wait on front car. That launch gets me every single time--but 1 ride was enough for us and headed back to MF. By this time they were letting us walk thru the special access gate and get right back in line. Cool deal. Hubby and I managed 6 more laps on MF before heading to Raptor for some early ride time.

Hubby and I rode Raptor 10x before gates opened and the GP swarmed into the park. We took advantage of the beautiful weather and took pictures. I also hit up some of the stores for much wanted (but not needed) CP merchandise. We were basically just trying to kill time before lunch. We rode the train and I ended up crashing on hubby. I was OUT. A couple of our friends had seen us and apparently got a big kick out of me sleeping on the train. I drank 3 Mountain Dews (love the pop bracelet!) and was good to go for lunch.

Lunch was great, hot dogs, potato salad, grilled chicken, and vegetable lasagna. Dessert was shortcakes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Yummy. Again, Kudos to the food services people, they really out did themselves again!

Hubby and I booked out of the park after lunch and headed back to the hotel. When we got to First Street (location of almost accident night before) we saw these huge skid marks where I had slammed on my brakes before I swerved out of the way. Seeing that made me sick to my tummy.
Back at hotel, hubby and I crashed. OUT as soon as we got horizontal. We got up at 8pm, showered and headed back to the park. We ate at Johnny Rockets and then we rode Raptor 8x before ride was closed and waited there for the PM ERT fun to begin. We were the 1st ones in the line and ended up meeting with 2 of my KI friends. We had a nice conversation with them. They were shocked when they found out that KI is actually my home park. They had assumed it was CP since I spend so much time there :)

Raptor ERT was beyond awesome. I don’t know what was more fun, the actual ERT or listening to the ride op Ben dogging Diamondback! He was saying such funny stuff. Making fun of all the trim brakes on DB and someone said to him “we have trim brakes but you have Mean Streak.” Ben said “yes I must apologize for Mean Streak” - too funny!! Anyway I finally made my 2k rides, which they announced! I ended up with 10 rides (8 of which were rerides) past that before the train after us ended up stuck on the mid course block brake. I was so mad I wasn’t on that train! So basically no more rides for us but it was about time for the ERT to end so no big whoppie. I assumed they just had to wait for the ride to reset (16 minutes I believe) to get the train back to the station.

So with another CoasterMania under my belt we left CP Saturday night laughing about the fun we had and how sad we were it was over already.

Sunday June 7th
We woke up Sunday morning and I asked hubby if he would mind if we headed back to CP again for a couple rides. He didn’t want to at first but then I said if we didn’t go back to CP then could we go to KI instead. Hubby immediately opted for CP :)

We got to CP around 9:30am-stayed at Raptor and got 9 more rides (no it never gets boring to me) and instead of leaving (as we had planned on doing) we ended up taking in the whole park and riding quite a few more rides. It was a blast-that spur of the moment stuff always is!

Speaking of which, does anyone know that the big round flowerbed is going to say?? We tried reading it from Raptor and the sky ride and could not really read it. I think it is going to say Happy Birthday XL 200-but not sure-any ideas?

We said our final farewell to CP around 1ish. My payback was I had to stop at Roeders so hubby could hang out for while---a while turned out to be 3 hours so we didn’t even leave Sandusky till almost 4ish. Had I known I might’ve headed back to CP. Oh well, I’ve got my horses, he’s got his Harley and I suppose I owed him for the gazillion Raptor rides he rode with me.

All in all CM ‘09 was way fun and one of the best ones ever. My thanks to the PR group who worked so hard on the event. My thanks to the crews who had so much enthusiasm despite the long day and having to tolerate all of us. Again the food was all yummy. My thanks to all my friends too who hung out with us, plus all the people we ended up meeting.

Cant wait till CoasterMania ‘10! :)

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 2019 :)

Assuming my math is correct, you broke 2,000 flights on Raptor this weekend? Congrats! And I think we were on the same train as you at the end of night ERT.

From what I could make out its the Magnum logo with the tailing orange lines and the bottom says 20th anniversary. What the top says I have no idea.

Coastermania was a blast! That final ERT session on Raptor was fantastic, i think I got around 10 rides in also. I was very glad we didn't have to walk back to the entrance each time.
The ride op's were great and Ben made it a lot of run!

--Kirk Fitzgerald

Also, saw Signed Sealed Delivered on Saturday. During the show the males wear a high school letter jacket. The front has "CP" over the left chest, the back has a drawing of a Mufflehead with the incription "Muffleheads." Hilarious, and also a great show as well.

Jo,

No, those of us stuck on the MCBR during ERT waited there a while, and were eventually evaced. We ended up back at the entrance lockers at right about 1 am.

Glad to hear it was back up and running for Sunday.

The Raptor ERT was definitely a ton of fun. The crew was amazing. Not only did they make it fun, but I've never seen them crush the interval like that time and time again. There were a few laps where our train never even had to stop on the brakes, and that was with 3 trains running.

fbama73 said:
Jo,

No, those of us stuck on the MCBR during ERT waited there a while, and were eventually evaced. We ended up back at the entrance lockers at right about 1 am.

Glad to hear it was back up and running for Sunday.

I got stuck there 2x before. The 1st time didnt count since our TL made us stop there ('00) during morning test runs. The 2nd time was during Halloweekends ('02?) we sat there for a good 30 minutes before we got to go. No evac.

Im actually glad though cause that spiral staircase shakes and I would get so dizzy trying to climb down all of them. We had to evac a train load in '03 and I actually offered to pay someone else to take the guests down! :)

Glad everyone was ok-maybe was the phantom train that caused the midbrake stop. Raptor was up again yesterday morn, that was all I was worried about! ;)

Jo

Jo-

Congrats on 2K Raptor flights. You are right, Raptor is one of those coasters that doesn't get old. Got 10 rides in during ERT and was ready for another 10.

Saw the buttons you made for the crew. Very nice and thoughtful.

Mike :-})

The Raptor ERT was great, unfortunately my shoulders were so sunburnt I couldn't handle more than one ride. Before heading to Saturday's night ERT I got a ride on Skyscraper and thought I was going to die from the pain. I learned my lesson, next time I will pack my sunscreen if I'm going to spend an afternoon at Soak City.

Hey Jo thanks for the props. I'm just glad that everyone had a good time.

^^Your spieling was hilarious and awesome!! Loved the 70's stache too! IMO, you should be the only one to rock Raptor's mic.

Ride OP Ben said:
Hey Jo thanks for the props. I'm just glad that everyone had a good time.

Everyone had a great time, especially the die hards who stuck it out for the Raptor ERT! You were a blast!

I love my Raptor...but Diamondback DOES rock! :)

see ya soon!
Jo

Just went to the park today, the center logo is more filled in. The top says "20th" then you have the Magnum Logo in the middle, and "anniversary" scrawled across the bottom.

Touchdown said:
Just went to the park today, the center logo is more filled in. The top says "20th" then you have the Magnum Logo in the middle, and "anniversary" scrawled across the bottom.

Thanks!! :)
I figured it had something to do with Maggie's anniversary but boy I wasn't even close on what it says!

Jo

Thanks for the compliments to my crew! We all had a great time. I wish the whole crew got to have the chance to work it but unfortunatly they all couldn't. Ben was great on the mic and had all of us laughing...The speiler award should definatly go to him.

This is the best crew I have been a part of, and I am proud to call myself the TL of it. We love to hear compliments (and I love to hear the hate too) so dont be afraid to speak your mind of the crew on here because we do read it and we do appreciate it all (good and the bad). If no one tells us what they like/dont like about us then we can't change anything to make it better for YOU. Once again, thank you for the compliments and we will continue to be the best Raptor crew we possibly can!

John (Raptor TL 2009)

p.s. Jo, thank you for the card! We got it yesterday. That made my day.

John, you guys did an awesome job during ERT.

Thanks. Mike :-})

Hey MeanStreakJohn- I know exactly who you are. You checked my restraints on ERT at C-mania, and I thanked you for working over. Your response was that you'd scheduled yourself for it deliberately. You also were the one who handed me the clipboard at the bottom of the stairs after we got walked down from the MCBR.

My wife and I both thought you and your crew were great!

fbama--yes, I remember you. I am glad you had fun and I hope you are one of the few who actually enjoyed the walk down!