copied from an article...
“Here's something that will bring a tear
to your eyes, it certainly always does to mine. Today, 9-15-2016 is the 48th
anniversary of the last ride aboard the Cyclone Racer. It was a Sunday night,
9-15-1968 at around 11:00 PM when the last paying customer was served. Then the
city officials came wanting last ride. As they hemmed and hawed who would get
the last ride, the ride operators were thinking something different. To upstage
the very people who served the death sentence to the Racer, the ride operators put the brakes on automatic and
took the actual last ride on the great coaster after everybody left. How do I
know this? I interviewed the actual ride operators who worked the last night.
The demolition took place the very next morning destroying the coaster from the
ocean end forward. It took almost 2 months to totally destroy the great ride
and perhaps destroying forever the most iconic and famous ride in history ever
built by man. Picture was taken early November 1968.”
I rode this great coaster when I was about 6 or 7 years old…circa
1957. They evidently did not have an age
or a “you must be taller than my stick” restriction. My Uncle Don Kilcrease took me on the
ride. To him, a Korean War veteran…it
probably was not that big a deal. To me
it remains to this day the single most TERRIFYING event in my life! I could not breathe plummeting down that
initial drop, and then speeding out over the ocean. I’m pretty sure he asked me if I wanted to
ride it again…I declined. My Aunt Frankie was wiser than both of us, in that
she remained on terra firma the entire time. Approximately ten years after my
maiden (and only) voyage, they tore it down.
What a ride!
1 comment:
Wow! That is something!I never was a roller coaster person, but I taught my sons not to fear them and they both love them. I still hold the purses. :)
Post a Comment