Hot Island Rhythms

This pas Saturday evening my daughter Maleena and I went to Kings Dominion. We arrived around 7:15pm. As we walked to the Congo area she saw a sign for Hot Island Rhythms and asked if we could watch the show, it started at 7:30. That was fine with me I love the shows so we sat down and waited for the show to start.

The KD entertainers came out with a bang singing Hot Hot Hot. The sound was great and the costumes were very nice. Our KD singers turned Hot Hot Hot into Conga followed by Turn The Beat Around, Rhythm of the Night, and Get On Your Feet. Talk about being in the islands, nothing like Gloria Estefan to get you in the Hot Island mood.

Next was a montage of older songs Build Me Up Butter Cup, The Tide Is High and Heat Wave. Wow now we are feeling the Rhythm. The singers came out into the audience to try and get things pumped up. It was great. Lots of energy and great music. Maleena and I were even singing and dancing along with the performers.
The group finished strong with Everlasting Love, Brown Eyed Girl, and Celebration. As the show ended we were Walking On Sunshine.

Maleena and I recommend that you take 30 minutes of your buys day at Kings Dominion and stop and watch the show. It is performed in front of the Eiffel Tower on the big stage outside. It is a great way to start or end your day. The only thing was I was singing Walking on Sunshine until we got home.

Great job to all the KD performers and make sure you go and see the Signed, Sealed and Delivered show.



Posted at 6/30/2009 03:35:00 PM - 0 Comments

Day 29 for Project 2010 at KD

So lots of great stuff happened this week at KD for the new Project 10 coaster! Lets start with the parking lot.



This week three very large pieces of lift or launch track has arrived. I know its hard to tell how big the track is because we don't have anyone standing next to it, but lets say its well over 6 feet tall. Most coasters could fit in the middle of the track! When you look you can see where the coaster track is on the top of the very large pieces. Some more double spine pieces also arrived, along with single spine track, and two more shipping containers.

More work is going on at the site as well. They are now removing dirt from farther back at the site, but I think this is only because they need the dirt at another part of the site. The dirt movers were picking up the dirt and then spreading it over the long straight away by the Anaconda lift hill.

They also have footer molds in the ground and it looks like they are pouring footers. The footers look like they would be for a turn going in to the station. Very large footers.

Hope you all join us this Friday for our Big Bang event at the park. As of today we only have one spot left!!


Posted at 6/30/2009 03:17:00 PM - 1 Comments

The Footprints of King Kobra

In the off season Will and I were taken on a ride back stage, so John Pagel could give us a good view of Lake Charles drained. When we were back stage standing under the Anaconda we saw something interesting. Footers that are still there for the King Kobra roller coaster.



The King Kobra was a Schwarzkopf shuttle loop coaster that used to stand on the same spot as the Anaconda life hill on the shores of what used to be a very large Lake Charles. Kings Dominion opened in 1975 with 15 rides. Two years later in 1977 they opened the King Kobra. This was Kings Dominions fourth roller coaster. The coaster had a 9 year run, and closed in 1986. The spot remained empty until 1991 when Arrow Dynamics was hired to build the Anaconda roller coaster. When the coaster was removed from the park it moved around to several amusement parks like Jolly Rogers and Alton Towers. You can now find the coaster in Brazil at Hopi Hari, its name Katapul.

Kings Dominion has a very large back stage area that has a lot of different rides in what is called there ride grave yard. So when we were back at the Anaconda, it was really cool to be able to take a few picture of what is left of the Kings Kobra.

Pictures of King Kobra Footers

Pictures of King Kobra at Kings Dominion are from Roller Coaster Database




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Posted at 6/24/2009 02:43:00 PM - 1 Comments

Day 22 for Project 2010

Today marked day 22 for Project 2010. It was perfect weather for working at the site. Maybe a little hot but it was dry, and a lot of people were busy working hard.



When I arrived at the park today there was a crain unloading more track from a container. It had three large double spined pieces of track bringing the total of double spined pieces to 9.

I was also told that earlier today another truck unloaded a total of 12 small track pieces. These pieces are easy to pick out as intiman track. They look just like the Top Thrill straight away pieces at the end of the ride, or Volcano's station pieces. You can also tell that these pieces most likly will be station and transfer track pieces. No new supports have arrived, but the ones that were left earlier this month are still there.

There are also to very large continers that are on site but not on a truck. These were dropped off in the last few days and its unknown what is on them.

Now we know we are looking at an intiman! Lets move on to the site work. Cement trucks were seen pulling in and out for most of the day. No more clearing is going on, but they are still moving land and it looks like they started work on footers today. They have two very large drills on site (witch I assume is for footers), and two large crains. There was a very large group of guys working on something with rebarb. Also a lot of big equipment is still on site for moving dirt.

I am going to try to keep everyone up to date every Monday, by making a trip down to the park and uploading pictures to my facebook page, and tweeting anything and everything.

Clint Novak's Facebook Page

Coaster Crew Twitter Page

You can also find updates with pictures and videos at the following links

Coaster Crew Youtube page

KDfansites Gallery



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Posted at 6/22/2009 04:47:00 PM - 0 Comments

Hurlfest 2009

Whats going on KDfansite fans. Thought I would stop by and tell everyone who did not have a chance to check out Hurlfest 2009 how great it was. I do have to say it was great to meet so many new faces from the website out at the park on Saturday. Had a great time.



All started with some ERT on Dominator, Anaconda, Flight of Fear, and Rebel Yell (both sides). There were not a ton of people there for the morning ERT, but those who were there had a great time. Dominator was ready for a busy Saturday and had three trains on. The line was long from time to time, but overall it stood up to its reputation of being a people eater, and long lines did not last long.

It was fun to see the lights on Flight of Fear. Scratch that, it was nice to FIT on Flight of Fear! Thats right Clint Novak's big butt was able to get on Flight of Fear, and had a chance to see what was going on with the lights on!

I skipped Anaconda because I was waiting for Big Al to catch up with the group. Then we all went over to Rebel Yell and had some fun on the North and South side of the ride. I think this may have been one of the first times they had both sides running with both trains on this year.

After that we all paid our respects to the coaster that was being celebrated, and thats the Hurler. Everyone stopped to sign the banner that will be hung in the ride station. After that some of the group hit up the ride

When they were all riding Hurler, Will and I went to store the big camera and hit up a quick snack before meeting back up with the group. Well having our snack that the Congo Grill, we ran in to Joe & Josh as they made there daily rounds at the park.

Once we all got back together we headed in to the air conditioned Kings Dominion theater for the Sign, Sealed, Delivered show. The show was not bad. Singers were great and the music was fun. Rose had left us for the afternoon so we missed the beach balls that we normally had in the pre show. Will almost fell asleep during the show so after he walked to Seven Eleven to get some energy in a can. By this time we also met up with John Turner. Don't worrie we hide the rum so he could not drink it.

In the late afternoon we fought the crowds to get in to the lunch area where we did some Q&A and watch a 4 year old pee. Yup, he peed right on the side of the building. Oh and the Q&A was as expected. Lots of questions that could not be answered. But was still fun. Food was good too.

If you are interested in seeing what others have to say about the day check out the Hurlfest Trip Report thread at the KDfansite.com forums.

Hope to see all you guys soon!


Posted at 6/14/2009 05:06:00 PM - 0 Comments

Marco Andretti at KD

Since I know nothing about sports or racing, my friend Will "The Thrill" Holder wrote this one for me. I know what your saying... "Will has a blog?" Take it away Will!

In sports, there are certain names that you can automatically attach to a specific contest. You hear Michael Jordan and you automatically know its basketball. Just like Ali is to boxing, Ruth to baseball, Farve to football, Beckham to soccer, Gretsky to hockey. You get the idea. In auto racing you hear names like Petty and Earnhardht and you know its NASCAR. When you hear the names INDY cars or IRL, one word automatically comes to most minds..... Andretti.

Third generation IRL driver Marco Andretti sure has big shoes to fill when your father is Michael Andretti and your grandfather is Mario Andretti. Marco recently made a pit stop so to speak, to Kings Dominion to promote the upcoming IRL race at the Richmond International Raceway. Myself and Clint Novak had a chance to hang with the rising racing protege.

First Marco had a luncheon with members of the media inside the Old Country Kitchen to discuss the upcoming race and any other questions that were thrown his way. Then we were all off to the Go-Kart track next to the Grizzly to get down to some real business. Marco and a friend strapped themselves into those mean machines and took a couple of laps for the cameras that were snapping and rolling away.

From there Clint had a chance to join some lucky contest winners, as well as KDfansite members Jason Deane and Brian Mitchell, in a 12 laps exhibition race against Marco. All drivers were given a head start followed by Marco. It didn't take long for the driver who is used to racing around tracks going speeds of 200mph to make short work of everybody else, passing them all. Clint claims his weight would be an advantage. I say keep dieting my friend.



After the race Marco signed autographs for everybody involved. I really have to wonder if a guy like him would find the rides at Kings Dominion to be boring? I wonder if he would let me drive his car around RIR a couple of laps? I should have asked him.

If you would like to see Marco, Danica Patrick and the other stars of the IRL race in person, then head out to the Richmond International Raceway on Saturday, June 27th for the Sun Trust INDY Challenge. You can purchase tickets by calling 866-INDYCAR or visit www.indycar.com You can also catch the race that night, 8pm on the VERSUS network.
Posted at 6/03/2009 11:53:00 AM - 0 Comments