Stark Raven Mad 2000:
Birth of a Wooden Coaster Enthusiast

Photo courtesy of Steve Nuss

What Holiday World did with Stark Raven Mad should be a crime! They took a perfectly nice annual event and managed to make it so over-the-top, outrageously, sensationally, unforgettably fun that those of us in attendance will never be able to look at coaster events in the same way again! Indeed, the Kochs of Holiday World have created a cult so powerful that they managed to take an innocent little sixteen year old boy and a jaded, cynical eighteen year old and effectively turn them both into brainwashed, slavishly devoted, Legendary maniacs! The effect this event had on its attendees was dramatic - we've all become slaves to Stark Raven Mad! Our trip began with a half day visit to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. My travelling companions were Shawn McLaughlin, Cindy Stout, Jeff Tolotti, Jim Rhodes and Steve Nuss, who was travelling without his parents for the first time. Neither Jim nor Steve had been to SFKK before and this was only my second visit to this park. I really my first visit and was anxious to see if the experience would repeat itself. I still like Kentucky Kingdom, despite it's insipid operating procedures. The park has some very nice rides, including the Hellavator, Breakdance and Enterprise, all of which are located in the front part of the park, which is all that is open between 10-11 a.m. One thing this section of the park desperately needs is a bakery. If they're only going to have this part of the park open for business in the morning they ought to make breakfast items available for sale. I saw a woman eating a Mexican burrito at 10:30 a.m. Gross! The layout of this park is truly funky, with the park divided into two distinct halves and separated by a bridge that crosses over a highway. The waterpark also lies smack dab in the middle and seems strangely misplaced! But there are many pretty areas within the park and I really like the look of everything but Chang Alley. The problem, I think, with this park, is that it lies in the middle of a concrete jungle, with the Louisville airport, highways, stadiums and huge parking lots located nearby. There are no trees or vegetation in the area to absorb the heat. Instead you get a heat inversion rising over the park, much like any downtown, and this makes it uncomfortably hot, particularly in an area like Chang Alley which has nothing but concrete walkways. The park has one standout coaster, Thunder Run. This is an excellent double out and back woodie that delivers a nice first drop, a great, low to the ground turnaround that is speedy and dramatically overbanked, and a series of hills that delivers shocking airtime if you're sitting in the first few rows! I rode with Steve and he was so looking forward to getting his first great ride on a great out and back woodie! I instructed him on where to sit, and how to adjust his seat belt and lap bar to obtain the maximum amount of airtime! Unfortunately he failed to pull his lap bar down in time, and the ride op came up from behind and proceeded to *staple* him into his seat! I watched his head roll 45 degrees down to his chin as he followed the movement of the lap bar being slowly smooshed into his waist. Then he turned his head to look up at me and I proceeded to lose it. I laughed all the way up the lifthill as he resigned himself to enduring one of the most frustrating rides he'd ever have. Our second ride was even more memorable. This time we took the second row, and this time he got lucky, with a loose seatbelt and lots of room in his lapbar. We came down that first drop and he started screaming immediately, then we hit the first hill and WHOA! big airtime! We approached the third hill and I screamed "Get ready!!!" and we both were launched out of our seats into a near standup position! Steve's arms came flying down and he screamed "My pants are down! It pulled my pants down!" I looked over and saw him holding on and I started laughing my head off. It was one of the funniest moments I've ever had on a coaster. We rode all the coasters at Kentucky Kingdom, but none were more memorable than Thunder Run. We also ate at Village Pizza, which last year was so good it became my No., 1 place for park pizza! This year, however, something changed and it wasn't nearly as good. Last year it was a floppy crust pizza, swimming in lots of tangy sauce and a generous amount of cheese and pepperoni. It was what I imagined real New York City pizza to taste like. This year, however, the crust is hard, and while the sauce is the same, the proportions are much different, with everything scaled way back. Cindy even got a slice fresh out of the oven and it was no better. Village Pizza no longer has great pizza, in fact it was a huge disappointment. We left Kentucky Kingdom at 3 and drove to Santa Claus, Indiana. First we checked into the Santa's Lodge Resort, which is across the street from Holiday World. This is a very nice resort, and despite Robert Ulrich's claim that it was too expensive for what you get, I found the rooms very nice and reasonably priced at $65. They also had a nice restaurant offering a breakfast buffet which we enjoyed the following morning. One thing that I found disturbing about this place were the Santa statues out front. One was a "Heil, Santa!" statue that sent my Jewdar into Danger Will Robinson mode. The other was Santa sitting on a crapper, with his face distorted into an obviously grunting position ("ooooh ho ho ho, aahhh, uuunnh ho ho ho") It was time for Stark Raven Mad. Kudos to Dave Johnson on the shirt design! The color was certainly a daring fashion choice, but the orange actually looked flattering on most people and the shirt was very fun! This was Jeff, Jim and Steve's first time and I was a little worried they would not be won over by Holiday World. After all, I told them, this isn't some big giant Florida theme park. This is a small, family owned, Indiana cornfield park. It doesn't have an abundance of coasters or state of the art flat rides, and it doesn't have any of the fancy immersive theming they were used to. What it has is one kickass coaster (now two), a friendly, attractive and comfortable atmosphere, and customer service on a level unlike any other park I have ever been to. And hopefully that would be enough. I shouldn't have worried. Holiday World isn't the darling of coaster enthusiasts for nothing, you know. All three of them were simply blown away by this place. I took my first ride on the Legend with Steve and then snaked a ride with Chris Hartman, and all three of us were simply breathless by the ride's end! This is the fastest, most intense coaster experience I have ever had! It is right up there with the Riverside Cyclone and Georgia Cyclone. Steve was hooked from his very first ride. He was screaming and yelling and acting crazy all night long! Each time he came into the station he was pumping his fists and had the most hilarious expressions on his face, a combination of shock and exhilaration and pure delight! It was such a kick watching Steve's transformation into a wooden coaster fanatic! Jeff Tolotti was just as funny to watch. At times he came off the ride literally hysterical, and one time I didn't know if he was actually going to start crying or laughing! Later on that night the train came roaring into the brakerun and it must have been a helluva ride because he had this look of total shock and disbelief on his face! He was holding his heart and his expression remained the same all the way into the station. His eyes looked glassy and his gaze was like a zombie! He stumbled his way out of the train, down the stairs and got right back in line, all without even saying a word. Shawn McLaughlin was funny to watch too. Two years ago I watched Shawn go through the same kind of transformation at Stark Raven Mad that I now saw in Steve. It is obvious Shawn *LOVES* this event. He literally rides non-stop. Anywhere, any seat. If he can snake his way into an empty seat he beats everybody to the punch. He doesn't get tired and he doesn't need a break. And he LOVES the Legend. As for me, I love the Legend, too. As I said, it is the most intense coaster ride I've ever experienced. When I saw Dave Bowers and his friend Eric boarding for their inaugural ride I yelled to Dave "Hang on!" My favorite part begins at the double up and ends at the entrance to the double helix. It is Ravenesque, so much so that as we entered that section, Cindy would turn to me and scream "Good luck!" The speed is simply impossible! And while the airtime isn't the main draw of this ride, what airtime there is is unexpected and unusual! The Legend has, without a doubt, the best double up in the world. The airtime on it is extreme, and the violence with which you are slammed back down into your seat is shocking and kind of scary! In fact The Legend is a scary ride, and with that, Holiday World has succeeded in their hopes to deliver a ride that is befitting of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Legend has four tunnels! The smell of cedar is so strong and so nice I wish they'd bottle it! And the tunnels are thankfully very long and very effective. I like tunnels that you enter not being able to see the exit, and each of The Legend's tunnels are curved and very long, especially the third tunnel. They are also incredibly loud, particularly at night. That third tunnel was so long and so loud it felt like a living nightmare! For me, the defining moment of this coaster, and the park as a whole, is the bell. A bell tower has been built on top of The Legend's station, and a ride op pulls the rope each time the train reaches the top of the lifthill. The bell tolls a good five or six times, and the terror begins. The bell is a perfect symbol of what Holiday World is all about. They don't need a lot of fancy, multi-million dollar theming. Instead, a well-placed bell that tolls with each ride and rings throughout the Halloween section of the park gives an unmistakable identity to Holiday World, much like the whistle on Noah's Ark defines Kennywood. For me, the bell is a stroke of sheer genius. Such a wonderful simplicity and such a pleasing sound. Whenever I think of Holiday World from now on I will hear that bell. But what about the Raven? Is it forgotten? Hardly! I rode with Jeff Tolotti and he was ecstatic after his first ride! And I ended my night on the Raven too, with Paul Drabek on the last train out. In between I logged lots of rides with lots of great people, including Jon Smith (such a nice, admirable young man!) Robb Alvey (such a digusting, dirty old man - he pinched my butt when they turned the lights out in the station!), Sarah Alvey (such a sweet, wonderful woman - why didn't she pinch my butt when they turned the lights out in the station?), Julie Stone (we rode in front and leaned way over and flew the track!), Scott DrHavocBOH (funny, funny kid, he totally cracks me up), Sean Flaharty (I think he said something about a pickle) and I even snagged a ride with Matthew Mamoosh Sullivan, who seemed to be having a blast at his very first SRM! The new lapbars on the Raven aren't that bad. Of course I wish they had kept the original lap bars, but I had no problem keeping mine from ratcheting down. And the lap bars serve to point out the rather dramatic difference in comfort level between The Raven and The Legend. The Legend's lap bars are truly awful and are the only thing I don't like about that ride. They HURT. The laterals are so strong it makes it impossible to ride hands up without having your legs crushed into either side of the lap bar. It keeps the coaster from being as rerideable as I'd like and thus, drops it down several notches in my coaster rankings. The Raven, however, is still as comfortable and rerideable as ever. Well, as comfortable as you can be being tossed around like a rag doll! Holiday World reworked the dinner to better accommodate the jump in attendance, and I think they did a fantastic job! They opened up the restaurant, both as a serving station and to provide additional space for people to sit. The pizza was even better than I remember it, and I liked that you could go back for more if you wanted to (I didn't). Holiday World's pizza now ranks number two on my list of best park pizza, right behind Blands. David O'Connor and I mourned the absence of orange fudge from the list of available choices, but the piece of chocolate with nuts I had was very good. Holiday World's new, unlimited free soft drink policy was every bit as important and impressive as The Legend. In addition to offering guests free soft drinks at all park food stands and restaurants, "Pepsi Oasis" stands have been placed throughout the park, offering every kind of Pepsi product - Pepsi, Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi, Storm, Mug Root Beer (my favorite!), Citrus Hill Pink Lemonade, Hawaiian Punch and water! A stand was brilliantly placed just outside the Legend's entrance and exit, and I cannot begin to describe the gratitude people felt for this addition! The buildings housing these self-serve soft drink stands have *HUGE* air blasts at each entrance, and this is obviously to keep out the flies! No fly could possibly get through that air blast! But the air blasts also served to cool many of us down, and I enjoyed standing under them! Of course this was only possible as long as you weren't holding a soft drink because the blast is so powerful it kicked up the soft drink out of your cup! THANK YOU HOLIDAY WORLD FOR THIS WONDERFUL ADDITION!!! After dinner, of course, we rode for four and half hours straight. And once the sun set each coaster brought an intensity that was extreme and at times frightening! The Raven rides were *SO DARK* that at times you could not see a thing in front of you. And The Legend's speed was simply astonishing, even frightening. As fast as the Raven is, The Legend's speed is unmatched, even by GhostRider. In fact, I told several people that The Legend reminded me most of GhostRider for it's speed and the Raven for it's out of control intensity. Rerides began after a few hours. Jeff said he couldn't handle The Legend more than twice in a row because it was just too intense. I was cracking up at how overcome with emotion he was! But nothing seemed to stop Steve or Shawn - these guys became maniacs, and it was clear The Legend was their new number one coaster. It was especially fun for me seeing the birth of a true wooden coaster enthusiast in Steve. And to watch Steve and Shawn ride together with such joy and abandon was almost as great as riding the coaster itself! I truly love riding roller-coasters and I don't understand it when people say certain rides are boring. So it makes me feel good whenever I see my friends experiencing the true joy that I feel when I'm riding. While riding The Legend we saw the Raven's station lights go out. With about twenty minutes left we headed over to finish out the night. Sure enough, as the train was about to turn for the brake run, the ride ops turned the lights off in the station! The train came through in total darkness and went around again for ride number two! Only after the train was headed for lifthill did the station lights come back on. Jon Smith and I rode together. We knew it was nearing midnight so we raced down the path to get in line, but found the entrance gates closed. Oh no! But we walked back up the exit ramp and sure enough there were two spaces available in the queue. The ride ops let us cross over and I got in line with Paul Drabek. We ended our night with a fantastic, scream-filled, lights out double ride on the Raven. Bravo Holiday World! Cindy, Shawn, Steve and I had so much fun we decided to abandon our next day's plans to visit Kings Island and stay at Holiday World instead! I am SO GLAD we did! First of all, I'm glad Steve got a chance to hang out with the kids from Chicago. They are all great guys and I know Steve had a blast getting to hang with kids his age. I was also glad to hang with Dave and Eric, Julie and Geoff, the Ulrichs, Robb, Sarah, Jim Westland and his lovely girlfriend Andi, Mark Rosensweig, Dave Johnson, and of course Cindy and Shawn. Jeff and Jim opted to go to PKI as Jim had never been there, and I fully expected Steve to go along with them. But he said no, he'd rather stay at Holiday World. Wow! Of course we started out visiting the rest of the park. Cindy, and later Julie, had extremely impressive flights on the Flyers, both of them snapping brushing the trees with their fins! And oh my gosh, Holiday World has such a *GREAT* Spider. Cindy and I got a wonderful whirl (we banged on the front of the car and demanded "We must be whirled!") and later Shawn McLaughlin and I did also! This is their best flat ride. I also love their Rainbow and Round Up! Cindy and I had a particularly memorable ride on the Scrambler where we laughed ourselves into tears! We also rode the Rapids ride, where Cindy took particular delight in seeing me get the brunt of each wave. And the log flume was truly a new and exciting ride, thanks to the Legend! But again, the stars of the day were the coasters. Both the Raven and The Legend were running great - obviously not as frighteningly fast as they were at midnight, but still performing with great intensity and speed. Shawn and Steve were slaves to The Legend by this time, riding non-stop for I don't know how long! My legs were so sore from the Legend's lap bars that, with about 45 minutes before closing time, I could ride no more! I begged Cindy to take me away from all this as I felt powerless to quit. She suggested a ride on the Flyers, and after being severely berated by Steve ("you disgust me! you're a a disgrace to enthusiasts everywhere!") we hobbled our way over to the Flyers, where the ride op gave us the generous instructions to "ride as long as you want - just give me a signal when you're ready to quit!" Wow! We rode for several minutes, then hobbled our way back to the Legend, where we proceeded to ride three more times, including the last ride of the day. We are Legend sheep. Baaa. As our day came to a close I asked Steve if he was glad that he stayed. There was no hesitation in his voice - he said he would have liked adding more coasters to his list but why leave a place like this? I gotta hand it to him, the boy's got his priorities in order. I began plotting my return to Holiday World. Up until now I've only come to this park for Stark Raven Mad. But three important additions - the Pepsi Oasis stands, The Legend and the bell - have left an indelible impression on me. And when you include the Raven, the wonderful flat rides, the food, the friendly employees and outstanding customer service, there just aren't that many parks that offer their guests that kind of complete, satisfying experience. Holiday World may not be the biggest, but it is world-class in every way! Count me among the devoted members of the Cult of Holiday World. Mark