64 started, 2 Remain in the first ever Roller Coaster Tournament of Champions and now its time for the FINAL MATCH-UP!
Voting ENDS 1030 PM Monday November 1st
Location: Holiday World, Santa Claus Indiana On-ride Video: Voyage on-ride video Manufacturer: The Gravity Group Track layout: Out and Back Height: 163 ft (50 m) Drop: 154 ft (47 m) Length: 6,442 ft (1,964 m) Max speed: 67.4 mph (108.5 km/h) Inversions: 0 Duration: 2:45 Tournament Rank: #1 in Mid Bracket Tournament History: #16 Demon, #9 Evel Knievel, #5 Hades, #11 American Eagle, #1 X2
VERSUS
Location: Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson New Jersey On-ride Video: El Toro On-ride video from CoasterForce.net Manufacturer: Intamin AG Track layout: Hybrid: Out and Back and Twister Height: 181 ft (55 m) Drop: 176 ft (54 m) Max speed: 70 mph (110 km/h) Inversions: 0 Duration: 1:35 Tournament Rank: #4 in East Bracket Tournament History: #13 Phoenix, #12 Boulderdash, #1 Millennium Force, #11 Nitro, #3 Goliath (SFOG)
Rode both this year and El Toro is definitely better. Might be closer next year with the new trains on Voyage, but the 2010 PTC Voyage does not deserve to win. Trust me on this one if you haven't ridden both. Vote for Toro! It needs help and is worthy of winning.
At HWN Voyage was running in prime form, completely deserving of the #1 spot. Later in the year at the GOCC Fall FreakOut it was running pretty slow, but still awesome.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
I rode Voyage one day before HWN and one of the trains felt like it had a square wheel! I rode both trains from different seats on a weekday. I got to ride Toro this month on weekday with 10 minute waits and Toro was clearly better to me. I'll somehow find a way to make it back to HW next year to ride it with the new trains. Right now I see the Voyage more with untapped potential, because I don't feel I got it's best day yet. Smooth with airtime beats just airtime for me....... My point is Voyage has more potential, but El Toro is the better ride right now. If there was nothing wrong with Voyage and it is that good, then why is Holiday World spending money to put new trains on it?
The PTCs being quite heavy are tearing the track to pieces, they are tired of having to retrack 1000-1500 feet of track annually on such a new ride. HW has always had a close working relationship with CCI and now Gravity Group, so it's rest assured that they are getting a spectacular bargain on the trains to be the park that was supposed to test them out. If they finally make it on, the park has admitted they have plans to add them to Legend and Raven in due time for the same reasons if they are successful on Voyage.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
^Heavy is an understatement. The fact the trains alone have moved the track feet in some places says something. Hopefully the new trains work and people stop buying PTC's.
I was thinking about international rides, but the tournament as it was, was hard enough. I wanted to make this as much like the NCAA tournament as possible, What I will do is ask for suggestions for US rides that you would like to see next time around.
My goal was to have great head to head match ups, and some of the later rounds, especially Sweet 16 and later did just that.