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Son of Beast

Image: Jeremy Thompson, Flickr (license)

As your train slowly advances out of Son of Beast’s station, you pass beneath the towering first drop – a veritable engineering marvel of criss-crossing wooden pieces that might as well be toothpicks thanks to the grand size of the structure. As you coast slowly forward and through the unintentional tunnel of wood, directly ahead, something comes into view: a towering vertical loop.

But before we get there, we’ve got a whole lot of track to navigate. Right away, the roller coaster train twists and dips to the left, diving down a 51-foot drop that’s bigger than the main hills on many wooden roller coasters. But on Son of Beast, this is merely a warm-up. The 51-foot drop is a tease, meant to build up enough speed to bring the train around to the base of the coaster’s lift hill. Two. Hundred. Eighteen. Feet.

The train engages with the anti-rollbacks of the towering lift hill, proudly producing that unnerving click-click-click that serves to build mind-numbing anticipation and anxiety as the train advances slowly up to record-breaking heights. The speed leftover from the first drop is enough to jump-start the climb, but it’ll be more than 40 agonizing seconds of fear until the train reaches its apex.

And unlike a traditional roller coaster, just because you’re at the top doesn’t mean you’re about to fall. Instead, Son of Beast teases yet again, dangling riders high up in the air along a dipped stretch of track. So terrifying is this 20-story dip that it leaves riders begging for the real thing. And boy, do they get it.

Image: Jeremy Thompson, Flickr (license)

The train levels out and aligns with a distant section of track. The only way to get there is through a 216 foot drop at 55.7-degrees. Along the way, the train reaches its top speed: a staggering 78 miles per hour.

The train rumbles violently down the massive drop and up a second hill. Son of Beast’s 164-foot tall second hill is still taller than the next tallest wooden roller coaster on Earth. And here, the ride really picks up steam. While you might expect Son of Beast to be an out-and-back, terrain-hugging roller coaster like its father, you’d be wrong. What follows will not be a series of ever-smaller airtime hills. Instead, Son of Beast, tears off to the right and enters into the ride’s iconic helix often called the Rose Bowl. The massive inclined double helix is dizzying and intense, the train battering along as it hammers against the towering structure at well over 70 miles per hour.

Around and around through the helix, the train spirals. It’s massive, and it’s wild.

Image: Joel Rogers, CoasterGallery.com

Then, the train levels out and enters the mid-course brakes – a brief moment of relaxation as straight track fills the horizon. But a breather is short-lived, as the track banks and dips off ahead. The destination? The ride’s signature: a 118-foot-tall vertical loop that makes Son of Beast the only looping wooden roller coaster on Earth.

Up until now, traditional knowledge has used a few very simple ways of differentiating steel and wooden roller coasters. For example, steel coasters are often smooth, and wood coasters are often rough. A tried-and-true rule, though, is that steel coasters can go upside down, and wooden ones can’t. Son of Beast famously bucks the rule, but now, facing a loop taller than most roller coasters main drops, you may question whether that rule really needed to have been broken.

Notice the size of the people next to the towering loop. Image: Dane Thomas, KICentral

But the train sails through the 118-foot tall engineering marvel as smooth as glass. In fact, the famed loop is the gentlest part of the ride. That's because the structure of the loop – its backbone – is steel, giving the loop a rigid and sleek skeleton. But make no mistake, the rails are 100% wood, making this undeniably the world's only wooden loop.

The train then soars into a second massive double-helix (this one nestled into the curve of the ride’s towering lift hill, creating an illusion of endless wood wrapping all around), races over a few last bunny hops (still at breakneck speed, mind you), before finally arriving back at Outpost 5.

We invite you if you dare to take a virtual ride on Son of Beast via the video below. Be warned: even digitally, it’s a doozy.

Taming the Beast

Remember Six Flags’ ambitious plans for Kentucky Kingdom? To put it lightly, Kings Island’s $40 million investment in Action Zone (with FACE/OFF, Drop Zone, and Son of Beast) had successfully scared Six Flags away. Defeated, the company more or less let the Kentucky park wither.

Instead, they took the plans they’d concocted for Kentucky Kingdom and shipped them up north to another of their new parks when Ohio’s third park, Geauga Lake, became Six Flags Ohio and successfully merged with a full sized SeaWorld to create the world’s largest theme park: the ill-fated Six Flags Worlds of Adventure. (We chronicled the unbelievable rise and staggering fall of that park in its own Lost Legends: Geauga Lake feature – a must-read for park enthusiasts and the most popular story we've told here on Theme Park Tourist.) Long story short: if Six Flags couldn’t use Kentucky Kingdom to decimate Kings Island, then they would use Geauga Lake / Six Flags Ohio / Six Flags Worlds of Adventure to instead take on the granddaddy of them all: Cedar Point.

Speaking of which, there’s no doubt that the year 2000 felt like a leap forward in the amusement park industry there, too. Cedar Point had shattered records and expectations by debuting Millennium Force, the tallest, fastest roller coaster ever, and the first to break the 300-foot height barrier. In the same month and just a few hours south, Paramount’s Kings Island had broken the 200-foot wooden barrier and built the tallest, fastest, second-longest, and only looping wooden roller coaster on Earth.

The momentum must’ve seemed unstoppable.

But take a look at Kings Island’s park map from 2010 and you’ll notice a structure conspicuously missing from Action Zone. Let’s confess what we all know: Son of Beast today is remembered as one of the biggest failures and theme park busts of all time. How could a record-breaking ride fall so quickly? Read on…

 
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Comments

That thing was AWESOME!!!! painful in the smallest amount of rain. Lloyd it with the loop, disappointed when it was taken out. This will ALWAYS be my favorite! Rest in peace my friend, thanks for the incredible rides!

I grew up with King's Island in the late '70s and early '80s. Such great memories from that park.

Another great article, thanks for thanking the time to write this up! I rode SoB once, without the loop, in 2008. Having heard the stories and dismissed (but noted) the rumors, I rode it thinking it would be a brutally rough but worthwhile experience. I remember thinking the 216ft drop was FAR SMOOTHER than I had anticipated, perhaps lulling me into a "maybe this won't be so bad after all" sense of security. But then when the train banked right into the rose bowl, the initial shuffle felt like someone had managed to instantaneously re-position my hips and legs about a foot to the left of the rest of me...and it proceeded accordingly for most of the rest of the course. Not so good with the side-to-side, this ride. That being said, I'm very glad I got to ride it, and I do miss it. From a business standpoint, though, I think Cedar Fair probably made the right call to remove it.

In reply to by Dave B (not verified)

I rode this monstrosity when it first opened. The Beast was always my favorite ride ever, so I was amped for this one. The pain this ride inflicted on me overwhelmed whatever joy I may have had. After the first ten seconds I just wanted it to end. I can't even tell you what the thrill was like. It's cool to think of what the ride may have been like if properly implemented, but I'm not sad to see it go at all. Banshee is a much better coaster.

I rode the Son of Beast when it first came out. It was Easter Sunday and rainy and cold. There was barely anyone at the park and my brother and I rode the ride over and over. In the beginning, it was smooth. After they took the loop out, I returned to the park happy to be there and ride this ride again. It was so rough that when I got off the ride, I couldn't move my neck. My shoulder was messed up for a year afterward. I was sad to see it go, but I totally understood why.

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