Roller Coaster

Yesterday Bob, who turns 80 in September, decided that he was going to go to Kings Dominion and ride the rollercoasters. He was especially excited to ride the new Intimidator305. Here is the description of this rollercoaster. It is he tallest and fastest roller coaster of its type on the East Coast. It is only the second giga-coaster ever built in North America. It is 305 feet tall or roughly the size of a 30 story building. It descends 300 feet at an 85 degree-angle at speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour.

Now, no amount of talk from me could convince him that this probably wasn't the best idea in the world. In fact, he told me "I bet lots of 90 years olds have ridden it." Yeah, right. Tons, I'm sure.

Anyway, he gets there and decides to ride the Volcano as a warm-up...his first ride upon entering the park. He terms this a "middle of the road" rollercoaster. The Volcano goes from about 0 to 70 in 2 seconds. He decides, despite the warnings of the park personnel to put your head against the head rest, to lean forward and close his eyes. When this thing takes off, his head shoots back like he has been hit from behind by a tractor trailer smashing his head into the head rest. This coaster catapults straight up and starts doing loopty-loops. Bob says "I really thought I was going to die."

Long story short, the great rollercoaster experiment ends with a bad case of vertigo, a bad headache and a case of whiplash, but no Intimidator305. Makes me wonder how so many 90 year olds are riding this thing.