Pantherian

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This was a bit strange, so I thought I'd share.

We were driving down to VB tonight, and I was monitoring the traffic, using an app on my phone. Anyway, I noticed that rather than listing the park as "Kings Dominion," the map listed that area as "Intimidator 305."

Anyway, it just struck me as a bit odd.
 
I'm not trying to say you're wrong or anything, but did it say 305 or 350, as it says in your post? That is rather odd. I305 does show of labeled on Google Maps, maybe it was just the relative area you were in?
 
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I actually just noticed my typo. I'm typing on my phone, vice my iPad or computer. I'll fix it.

So, I got more curious and played around with the map (also bored; I95 is as bad as you'd expect). Anyway, zooming in reveals Dominator, but still no reference to KD, itself.
 
No problem. :) I was just making sure it didn't actually say that on your app.
 
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Re: To Apollogeist's post about 5 posts up. In the mid to late summer and early fall of 2013 the Intimidator was closed down for the rest of the season due to people complaining about graying out. They ordered new parts and put the on, you wont notice a difference in the track just you'll gray out less often, or so they say. I haven't ridden it since they closed it so I don't know. :)
 
2013? I thought that was due to some wheels getting jacked up? They trimmed it before that for sure right? I rode it after they put the trim brakes on and barely made it over that first half conscious. Definitely not for me still. Impressive drop though.
 
Basically all of I305's major changes happened in 2010 and off season going into 2011. The very beginning we saw the original. After that, they added the trims to the first drop and the trims removed from the bunny hops. Following that, we saw new harnesses installed. Somewhere in between this they added the water sprayers in the station. This lasted the rest of the year of 2010. In 2011 the first turn was re-configured to reduce the sustained stress on the wheels. This also allowed for the trims to be removed and they re-added the trims to the bunny hop.

From everything that I could gather, the actual reasoning for these modifications was because the wheels were melting crazy fast. Any reasonable change the park could have done, people would still experience blacking out in some form during the ride.

Wheels are not cheap and having to constantly remove trains costs time of the ride being up. Intimidator 305 went through at least a wheel a day from what I would notice.
 
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Intimidator 305 had a very bad day today. Got stuck on the lift hill twice. And there was many other little things.
 
It's getting stuck in the same place each time.

I'm nearly convinced it has to do with the block system. Since there is only 3(?) blocks on the ride, the train will stop on the lift until the other train is in the station. So I guess that's not happening or it's not sensing that the train is in the station or not...
 
If the train is being stopped on the lift hill because the block isn't clear then it means that the ride operators are cycling the trains through way too fast. I'm pretty darn sure that after only a few weeks of training most operators and attendants won't be that in sync to be cycling these trains that fast.
 
Each of my 5 rides, we sat on the final brake run for a minute or two waiting for the train in the station to clear.

Each time that the train had gotten stuck Saturday, it began again within 5 minutes.
 
Not familiar with Intamin's op-panels but the operator could've accidentally bumped the lift stop button since everything is usually very close together, which really isn't a big thing unless you enjoy sitting at a 50 degree angle 250+ feet in the air. It should only take a mechanic or someone high-up in Operations to show up to clear the computer and allow the lift to proceed again. If it's something stupidly simple like that then the issue shouldn't be present the next operating day at the park (which is next Friday, I think?).
 
Well it stopped in the same place each time. Right before it levels out.

10169098_840431529316645_1956777815_n.jpg


Each time it got stuck on Saturday (dunno about today), it was in this exact position.
 
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