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Son of Beast at Kings Island

Son of Beast’s Fate Unknown

Joel
Roller Coaster News

Son of Beast Closed Again. Will it Join Big Bad Wolf in Coaster Heaven?
Son of Beast at Kings IslandThe wooden monstrosity that is Son of Beast has once again been closed. This time Kings Island (near Cinncinnati, OH) has announced that the ride will be closed for the rest of the season. Son of Beast opened in 2001 as the world’s only looping wooden coaster. The mere idea of a looping woodie, rubbed wooden coaster purists the wrong way. Others thought it was a neat hybrid of the coaster world. I am in the latter camp, but I can’t speak to how good or bad the Son’s ride is as I’ve never ridden it. The looping woodie debate ended in the winter of 2006-07 when the newly Cedar Fair-owned Kings Island removed the loop.

I was 0 – 2 in my attempts to ride Son of Beast. In April 2006, the entire park was closed due to snow (!) and then when I returned in the summer of 2007 for a twilight visit, Son of Beast was down for repairs by the time I reached the park. Reports have been that it’s super rough and the accident didn’t help this reputation. In July 2006, an accident injured 12 riders sending them to the hospital. I’d love to see Son of Beast reprofiled, but I have no idea how expensive or implausible that might be. Besides, what if Kings Island reprofiled it and it was still as rough as ever.

So is the Son of Beast about to be sent of to the scrap heap, reprofiled, or will it live on to abuse riders for another year?

What’s Your Take?
What do you think will happen to Son of Beast? What do you hope Kings Island does with Son of Beast? Leave a comment below.

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Joel
Founder of CoasterCritic.com. My favorite coasters are B&M hypers and gigas. I'm also a huge fan of terrain roller coasters.

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85 Responses

  2. i love sob its my fav ride but guys come on ur compplaing about it being rough? wat woodie isnt? if u can imagine a 80 foot woodie is rough how bad d u think a 200 foot one is? think about it lol i rlly hope they dnt tear it down

  3. Hey, everyone who's interested! I just looked on Kings Island's official site, and guess what? Son of Beast wasn't listed on the roller coasters list! Does this mean that it really is gone for good?

    Oh, and by the way, why is no one talking on the forum anymore? There's only been one or two comments on it in two months!

    1. for some reason the fotrum isn`t letting me on, even though i even started a new account.

  4. I hope they give it one more go around it was a little rough but all woodies are at first,It's one of my personal favorites,it would be ashamed to waste all that land let it be cedarfair

  5. According to a Mason neswpaper, Kings Island is going to open without running S.O.B. again. I was there last year and there wasn,t much activity in that corner of the park. Top Gun was practicly a walk on every time I rode it.I knew that ride was in trouble when they replaced the original trains with the trains they got from Hurriccine cat.5 from Myrtle Beach Pavilion.That ride itself was rough plus the wheels are smaller on the trains.Add that plus 30m.p.h faster. Thats gonna leave a mark|

  7. Wow, so a coaster that was originally the most gimmicky woodie of all time has gone from brand new to possible removal in no more/no less than 10 years?

    Wow…I'm kinda sad.

  8. well…. I see son of beast is no longer on the map of the park is it done.? Forever!!! Ive been on it 1 time to banged up. Just rebuild a new one. Call it son of beast just make it the way u want it ki!

  10. I was able to ride this coaster shortly after it opened and it was a mess then as it was till the the day they closed it forever.

  11. OK, I'm stealing this from Kevin at Incrediblecoasters, but it was very clever. Basically, if KI removes SOB, you can still experience it. Take a pickup truck to the middle of nowhere with another person. Sit on one of those carnival foot-massagers to simulate the vibrations. Play an SOB POV hooked up to a giant speaker at max volume and st in front of it. Then have the other person drive in giant circles at 70mph, and you'll know what it feels like to ride.

  12. SOB may be like the bat. The thought was there but science wasn,t.This could be the pinnacle of wooden rollercoasters.It was great to feel 80 m.p.h. on a woodie. There is a tremendous amount of wood to make the ride. With Ohios weather hot and cold there was a lot of swelling and shrinking which makes it very difficult to keep everything together. I hate to say this but they will problably take him down and put something different in.I,m glad I had the experience to go that fast on wood. Maybe they could build Grand son of Beast. A 500 foot tall steel coaster?

  13. I say, they tear it down, build another 200 ft tall wooden roller coaster, but build a better layout. More airtime hills, and build a smaller loop instead of the massive 118 ft loop they originally had.

  14. I've probably rode Son of Beast 14 or 15 times. I showed up 3 times in the first 2 weeks of operation, when they only ran it for a few times, and waited in line 6 hours twice, only to get a readmission ticket due to technical difficulties.

    While the weight of the cars didn't help, and certainly the loop added to that issue, the fact of the matter is that the thing was just too rough. I really want to see it open again, but you can feel/hear the thing ripping itself apart. In all honesty the design is great, but wooden coasters are supposed to flex and bend, but Son of Beast is a rock solid frame so instead of flexing it just tries to toss the cars off the track (instead of "bouncing" like it does on other woodens) and the speed and g-forces don't help that cause.

    If anything adding lighter cars made the violence of the ride even worse as any cushioning you got from the wood flexing is pretty much nil, the cars are smaller, and the turns make you feel like you are in a paint mixer.

  15. They should make son of beast prefabricated. That would end all roughness problems. I don't know if they'd have to take the whole coaster apart or what to make it prefabricated, but it would be worth it.

  16. I think they are going to take it down. I rule out the possibility of a rennovation because of cost. It cost Texas Giant $10 million for the renovation. SOB is almost twice as long and about 5 stories taller! I don't think it would be very practical because it cost 15 million to build (3x what Texas Giant cost) and the park stated that the ride has cost the park 30 million dollars what with the lawsuits and all! No they aren't going to renovate it I'm almost certain. All in all (with a guestimate of 25 million dollar renovation cost) they will have spent 70 million+ on this one roller coaster. They will most likely get rid of it. I hope whatever takes its place is good.

  17. I never rode SoB but i did ride The Beast in 2006 and it was so jerky, i felt like i broke my back on that ride. Was SoB worse than Beast in roughness cuz Beast was horrible!

  18. If they remove SOB, I hope they build another woodie and name it SOB to replace the original. The whole beast, son of beast story thing is cool. They should definitely make the new coaster smoother (maybe steel rails like Gemini?), and keep the loop idea. Then they can reuse some of the wood/track on the new coaster to save money. I think CF needs to keep the son of beast theme cuz in my opinion, that really makes the coaster unique and special.

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