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The Scariest Rollercoaster in the World. Ever.

 It is big, but it's not clever...
  (+31, -2)(+31, -2)(+31, -2)
(+31, -2) 		  [vote for,
against]

Rollercoasters. They're all about the conservation of momentum. Hike a load of people way up high, then use their own weight to propell them through a sickening series of ups and downs.

These days, though, rollercoaster designers seem to be running out of ideas. Lose the cart and just have you dangling from a track placed over your head - scary, but it's been done.

So - given that all rollercoasters are designed through computer simulations these days, and that I was a big fan of The Great Egg Race on BBC 2 when I was a kid (whatever happened to Professor Heinz-Wolf?) I'm going to propose the flexible track.

From a distance, the rollercoaster course doesn't look like a course at all. It's just a series of stand-alone pylons, with weird bits of stuff attached to them. If they're lucky, they look like an obscure letter in the Greek alphabet, but mostly they just look like a bizarre technological Stonehenge. Big things with odd shapes atop them.

Now - here's where things get tricky. Either the track is built like an anglepoise lamp (individual solid sections which have a limited amount of movement), or the whole thing is made out of some as-yet-unknown steel-like rubbery substance. The track forms itself as you screamingly run over it.

As you run into a section that seems to just point up into the sky, it actually bends down with the weight of the rollercoaster just enough to link into the next isolated section of track at the very moment you reach it. And once the weight of the car has left, it springs back into empty space.

So you're literally passed from pillar to post, with only the sheer weight of physics to ensure that the flexible track will click lego-like into it's next moorings. Of course, weight will be a prime factor in your wild ride - as you board the rollercoaster, the whole car will be weighed, and water injected into ballast tanks if need be.

I don't know about you, but I just shat my pants. Again.

—lostdog, Oct 05 2004

(?) The man, the myth, the legend. http://www.heinzwolff.co.uk/
The 58th variety. A childhood hero of mine. [lostdog, Oct 06 2004]

Parabolic mini-golf http://www.halfbake...rabolic_20Mini-golf
Parabolically shaped sports make any sport more fun. [croissantz, Oct 06 2004]

Sounds like this http://www.halfbake...ing_20rollercoaster
... only maybe not as scary. [Loris, Oct 11 2004]

(?) Top Thrill Dragster http://www.cedarpoi...ttd/specs/index.cfm
Be on it when the cable snaps in your face.. [Mr Burns, Oct 12 2004]

The Great Egg Race http://www.bbc.co.u...ive/great_egg_race/
Minor classic UK TV game show. [DrBob, Oct 13 2004, last modified Oct 10 2016]

Cedar Point http://www.cedarpoint.com/
Major themepark in Ohio, USA. [37PiecesOf Flair, Apr 06 2005]

Reminds me of their mode of transportation... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358082/
[RayfordSteele, Jan 19 2009]

Another wild ride Throw_20me_20for_20...oop_20(or_20twenty)
Not an actual roller coaster, but the way the passengers go through the "course" is somewhat similar to that of a roller coaster. [Vernon, Oct 08 2016]

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       Man, that IS scary.   

       When you're waiting in line, they should show video of all the mistakes made during design and production. A special segment says that 'theoretically, on hot days, some parts of the track shouldn't line up properly.'   

       To add to the terror, they should replace some really strong metal parts with wood. People tend to have less faith in the strength of wood.   

       Actually, I think I'm just going to ride the ferris wheel for a while. I'm not ready to ride 'the insanerator' just yet. I will, honest, I just want my lunch to settle first. [Runs for exit.]
—not_only_but_also, Oct 05 2004
   

       I'm scared simply thinking that [lostdog]'s written this down. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhh. Please don't show anyone at <theme park picked at random>Alton Towers</theme park picked at random>.
—neilp, Oct 06 2004
   

       This really would be the scariest rollercoaster in the world. Ever. I don't know whether to vote [+] for the inspired idea, or [-] for the fact that it might be built and I would be too scared to go on it.
—suctionpad, Oct 06 2004
   

       Would this meet the mandatory international safety standards for a rollercoaster to be even built? Oh yeah- also why would this idea be under bouncing? Now, WIBNI a rollercoaster had a section made of near- invisible track so it looks like your rollercoaster 'train' (as it's called in RCT) is flying unsupported throung the air. Or making it parabolic 'see link.'
—croissantz, Oct 06 2004
   

       Bah. Safety standards schmaftey standards. I do like your "invisible track" idea, though, croissantz.
—lostdog, Oct 11 2004
   

       I can't even ride regular rollercoasters (afraid of heights and stuff). [+] anyway.
—ghillie, Oct 11 2004
   

       //Big things with odd shapes atop them//   

       //some as-yet-unknown steel-like rubbery substance//   

       //I just shat my pants. Again//   

       You get my pastry based purely on the genius of these statements. This is the best thing I've seen here in days.
—vigilante, Oct 11 2004
   

       I saw Heinz Wolfe on the telly only a couple of weeks ago and he still looks well. He's still a University lecturer it seems.

//The Scariest Rollercoaster in the World. Ever//

Not as scary as the one with rotating blades all along the track sides, the acid bath plunge, the mystery ejector seat and the giant kebab skewer.
—DrBob, Oct 11 2004
   

       Surely the 'The Scariest Rollercoaster in the World. Ever.', should also have 'The Scariest Rollercoaster *Queue* in the World. Ever.'; where your family are forced to their knees at gunpoint by a screaming desperado, seemingly intent on ending your miserable, worthless lives in a single meaningless, random and indiscriminate act of cruelty; before taking one of your party hostage and making increasingly desperate, unreasonable and unstable demands of you while your weeping spouse/daughter/boyfriend etc pleads for his/her life; finally, the ordeal is brought to a close when the assailant, clinging wildly at his throat, his eyes popping out of his skull, drops to his knees and...
   

       a) is suddenly and rapidly consumed from the inside by an army of alien insectoids intent on devouring all human life
b) in an apoplectic fit is transformed into an infectious, limb-ripping zombie, keenly intent on destroying all human life
c) releases his angry pet vipers
d) tells you he's been sleeping with your wife/husband/son/daughter and infected them with a rare tropical, highly contagious and deadly disease that, now released into civilization is most likely going to spread uncontrollably, eventually wiping out all of human life
e) as though possessed by some maleficent spirit, rises slowly, chanting in sonorous tones and blasphemous syllables while, as if from the very earth itself, a gibbering evil crawls forwards, it's foul limbs glistening in the gloom from the accumulated slime of a thousand years. It fixes you with a stare, a stare that seems to speak directly to your very soul, you turn and flee, desperately trying to block the insane and Eldritch truths from your mind of the dawn of a dark age in which the Old Ones will return with the keen intent to conquer, consume and enslave all human life for several thousand millennia. Years later, under heavy sedation and after a great deal of experimental therapy and almost constant supervision, you eventually, if numbly, realise it was all just a rouse, as a dank and glistening hand soothes your tired brow...
f) Flips onto his back, pointing to the sky, where thousands of birds, insects, bats and other flying creatures have swarmed into the air, their swooping and wheeling bodies clearly and unmistakably spelling out your name, followed by the word ‘Repent’
g) dissolves.
—zen_tom, Oct 11 2004
   

       The Great Egg Race has got to the the halfbakeriest show ever. Give it a croissant.
—wagster, Oct 12 2004
   

       Croissant for zen_tom's anno, which had me in stitches.
—disbomber, Apr 05 2005
   

       Great idea! I live in Michigan, close enough to Ohio to make several yearly trips to Cedar Point. They surely would buy your idea! Buns to Vigilante! The more I read those three lines the funnier they got!
—37PiecesOf Flair, Apr 06 2005
   

       Thanks [disbomber] I remembered that anno as soon as I saw the idea name come up - it's good to know that there's not *always* a tumbleweed-like silence after one of my annos.
—zen_tom, Apr 06 2005
   

       I believe the proper term would be "tumbleweed-impregnated"--the silence wouldn't actually be *like* a tumbleweed so much as it would be permeated with tumbleweed activity.
—disbomber, Apr 21 2005
   

       I found this idea after wondering about the offspring of the tumbleweed disbomber impregnated.
—bungston, Oct 07 2016
   


 

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