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Six Flags Over Georgia Austell, Georgia Event: Goliath Media Day and VIP Preview Weather: Partly Cloudy, 70’s Crowds: None to minimal This was the day we’d been waiting for since September, and honestly years before, ever since rumors of a hypercoaster for SFOG started. In addition to the Media Day and VIP Preview festivities, we had signed up for the early morning B-roll footage filming session, so we were off to the park at 5:15am. Now I had never been to a Media Day before, but I had heard it was like taking an ERT session while they were still working the bugs out. That pretty much describes it. Essentially you are welcome to ride as much as you want, but patience is required while they accommodate the media and adjust the onboard camera. The park gates opened at 6am and we were headed towards the station. The new/updated section does look nice, the buildings and games facades have received a much-needed facelift and Goliath’s station, while quite simplistic, is very modern. We waited for about half an hour in the station before they announced it was time to ride. There were about 70 of us, and we wanted to make sure we were on the first train out, so we sat somewhere in the middle. After all the anticipation, it was finally time to ride. Now my first ride wasn’t the best, it was certainly too hard to take in everything the ride had to offer, and it still needed to warm up, but I’ll describe the ride as an average of my 30 rides throughout the day. As I said, the station is nice, tons of extra queuing for the front row, but not for the back. The experiences are obviously different throughout the train, but fantastic anywhere. You get the “pushed over the top” airtime in the front, “extended floater” airtime in the middle, and “drag you down” airtime in the back. It’s fun all over. If they’re running two trains, lift speed can vary. If they’ve got you out before the other train hits the break run, it’s a standard pace up the steep, and I mean STEEP, lift hill. If there is one train, or two trains with the other safely in the station, this ride absolutely flies up the lift. You can even tell when the other train hits the brakes when you’re on the lift because it kicks into another gear. The front of the train does the standard hang over the first drop, and the back is pulled down like usual. The drop itself is pretty solid, it’s got a good pitch, but at 170 feet it’s certainly not the longest. Fun in the front, great in the back, but it’s the only part of the ride I feel that Nitro has the upper hand. G’s are solid at the bottom of the drop, but it’s not nearly as smooth as you would think. It’s not Arrow rough, but whoever complains that steel coasters (and B&M’s in particular) are too smooth need to give this a ride. There is not one section where it lacks intensity or high or low G’s. The second hill is terrific, and it’s got a great drop over Scorcher into a banked turn and out of the park and to the “island”. Since the bottom of the second drop is the low point of the ride, it’s really flying up into the third hill and over the top. The airtime is simply unreal right there. It’s almost as intense as the bunny hops to come later, but it’s sustained much longer. You will likely find yourself thinking, “How am I still off the seat?!”. It puts Magnum’s famed 3rd hill to shame and had me thinking of Superman at SFNE. The fourth hill is the approach into the helix, and it’s a quick (but graceful) maneuver over the top and into the leftwards bank. The airtime-to-lateral G’s-to-high G’s is amazing. It’s not the sudden and jerky G’s you’ll get on a Schwarzkopf, particularly on Mindbender’s helix on the other side of the park. Instead, it’s an amazingly sustained intense heaviness; you might find yourself even browning out a bit! The hill between the helix and the hammerhead is great, but more like hill two than hill three. The hammerhead is interesting; fun, but I’m not a huge fan of overbanked turns. It was definitely as graceful as you’d expect on a B&M. And now the finale, rivaled only by the aforementioned S:ROS at SFNE. Now the trim located between the helix and the next hill will likely have slowed you down a bit (depending on your speed going through it), but don’t let that fool you. Without that, you’d be looking at some pain instead of fun. You get three bunny hills over the entrance road, Scorcher, and front of the park, and everyone below you will be able to see how little time you spend in the seat. You may end up regretting giving yourself some room with the lap bar, as you’ll be slamming between the lap bar and the seat with some impressive force. After the last hop is the last curve towards the brake run, and a final bump just to jostle you one last time before the hard magnetic brakes. I take back all of my complaints about having only two trains. Not having a MCBR lets this ride keep up its incredible pacing from beginning to end. Goliath has made my Top 10, coming in at #8. We got about 9 rides in the couple hours before Media Day prep started at 10:15. We enjoyed our light refreshments in the refurbished DJ’s Diner and watched the rehearsal for the “opening ceremonies”. I met up with Will for my sound bite for his news program, and we were all invited to ride again after the opening presentations. We probably got a dozen rides on it in the next few hours with lunch at the new BBQ place across the midway in there somewhere. The VIP Preview started at 1pm and we strolled around the newly opened sections of the park. Scorcher was running, so we got a quick front seat ride (walk on). We worked our way back to Gotham City and got on Mindbender’s front seat after a two cycle wait. All rides had one train running, and that was too much! Batman was next, and as vicious as ever. I honestly don’t know if it was the train rehab from before the 2004 season, but it’s indescribable how fast and intense this ride has been. You spend good portions of the ride fighting brown-outs and hoping your tightly tied sneakers stay on. It puts the other few Batmans I’ve ridden to shame. We got 5 quick backseat rides in. Swings were on the way back to Goliath, so we enjoyed them for a cycle and were on our way. We got a few more rides on Goliath before heading back to the front of the park to take some pictures. After the photo session we had an early dinner at DJ’s Dinner and headed towards Batman for a nice mini-marathon. We would have gotten right back on Goliath, but train issues (taking one off the track) and a full station (we’d been spoiled). Ten consecutive rides on Batman had us feeling how tired we were, so we thought we’d finish the day up on Goliath with a few more rides. We had 25 so far, and thirty was a nice round number. It went well with the 15 we had gotten on Batman. It was 5pm, and with a full station and one train, we figured we’d be lucky to get our rides in before our planned exit at 7pm. But the crew was working quickly and the lift was flying, so we were waiting only about 10 minutes or so for each ride. Not exactly how it was earlier in the morning, but nothing to complain about. I figure that’s probably what it will be like during ERT at Spring Fling on April 22nd. And that was that, we got 30 rides throughout the day, as well as 15 on Batman, and had a plenty good time. It’s a shame an event like this is so rare, but it was worth the wait, and I’m glad I at least have Spring Fling to look forward to. Thanks to everyone who made this event possible, especially Jim Taylor, Melinda Ashcroft, Robert Ulrich, not to mention B&M! Back to Trip Reports
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