Have you ever made a mistake? Have you ever gotten the feeling that what you were doing simply wasn’t going to work out the way you hoped? How far down the path do you go on a project, relationship, or job that’s sure to fail? Imagine it on a theme park operator’s scale: How much time would you be willing to invest in a venture that seemed doomed? A year? Five? Ten? How much money? $20 million? $30 million? $40 million?
As part of our Lost Legends series, we’ve explored dozens of famous (and infamous) rides that are gone but never forgotten. In one of our favorites, we took a trip to Kings Island – a world-class park outside of Cincinnatti, Ohio – to explore TOMB RAIDER: The Ride. One of the most immersive, mysterious, and innovative thrill rides to ever exist, Tomb Raider was closed after barely a decade, in a way you have to read to believe. We recommend starting with that in-depth Lost Legends entry.
The lost tale of Tomb Raider: The Ride is haunting enough, but if you can believe it, today we’re going to return to that same park to unravel the almost-unbelievable story of one of the most wild rides the world has ever seen: a cinematic sequel to a beloved roller coaster taken a step too far. Just two years before Tomb Raider, Paramount’s Kings Island debuted SON OF BEAST, the tallest, fastest, and only looping wooden roller coaster on Earth. Imagine it: towering over the skyline, Son of Beast shattered records and nerves.
And like Tomb Raider, just a decade later the abandoned skeleton of Son of Beast stood 218 feet over one of the most visited theme parks in North America, destined to never operate again. What kind of bad luck saw two of the most impressive rides in the world last barely a decade? The story of Son of Beast is as wild and violent as the infamous coaster, and we want to make sure this most unusual of tales is preserved for future generations who simply won’t believe how ahead of its time Kings Island was when it pulled out all the stops to shatter world records.
So, did the sequel stand up to the original? That depends who you ask…
The park
Kings Island opened in 1972 as one of the first generation of true, purpose-built “theme” parks determined to borrow Disneyland’s formula for success: cinematic, themed lands radiating out from a central icon standing at the end of a lavish entry land, as seen in the opening year map. Replace Main Street with International Street, a towering castle with an even-taller Eiffel Tower, and Disney’s cast of cartoon stars with the animated cavalcade of Hanna-Barbera (The Flintstones, the Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear, and The Smurfs to name a few) and you’ve got the gist of it.
Image: Jeremy Thompson, Flickr (license)
Among its many opening day offerings, the highlight of Kings Island’s line-up was the Racer, a red-white-and-blue wooden coaster wonder. The classic ride is known the world over by thrill ride enthusiasts for its historic role in reigniting what’s often called the Second Golden Age of the Roller Coaster, ending a decades long slump in construction that had lasted since the Great Depression. (It may be just as well known for its starring role in a 1973 episode of The Brady Bunch entitled “Cincinnati Kids,” which was filmed on location at Kings Island and featured the family’s ride on The Racer as its most thrilling scene.)
Nearly 45 years later, The Racer is still around, thrilling guests. But it didn’t take long for the ride – once the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world – to be dwarfed.
Kings Island was determined to stun the roller coaster world again, and just a few years later, they did.
The Beast looms
Kings Island was always intended to be a replacement for Coney Island, a midway-style park dating back to the 1880s located right on the Ohio River in Cincinnati. Like many riverside midway parks, Coney Island was no stranger to flooding. But one particularly devastating flood in 1964 covered the park in 14 feet of water, prompting discussions that would eventually lead to the opening of Kings Island, where Coney’s rides could be safely relocated.
Fittingly, Kings Island was due to become home to a replica of the Shooting Star roller coaster from Coney.
But when designers took a good hard look at the rolling, forested hills they’d acquired in Kings Island’s 1,600 acres, the concept of cloning the Shooting Star was shelved. With practically limitless land and gorgeous terrain, a new idea emerged: to internally design and build a roller coaster through the dense forests east of the park following the natural hills and valleys of the terrain. The result was more than anyone could’ve imagined.
On April 14, 1979, The Beast opened. It was, of course, the tallest, fastest, and longest roller coaster in the world, slaloming along the forest floor at 65 miles per hour, roaring through tunnels and darting along hillsides. Famously, the Beast is still isolated among 35 acres of forest, meaning that riders can’t see any of The Beast except the length of track they’re currently on. Fans rave about The Beast at night, when seemingly the only light for miles comes from the top of the ride’s lift hill above the trees. With a ride time of over four minutes, The Beast today is still the longest wooden roller coaster in the world, considered one of the best classic coasters on Earth.
What could tarnish the legacy of a world-renowned and famous roller coaster landmark? How about an offspring with a bad temper?
Elsewhere…
The Beast opened in 1979. Now, let’s flash almost two decades ahead and a state away. In 1997, a small family thrill park near Louisville, Kentucky went up for sale. The park – owned by a man named Ed Hart – was sold to a theme park operator called Premier Parks for $64 million. Premier Parks folded Kentucky Kingdom into its portfolio of parks that included Darien Lake in New York, Elitch Gardens in Colorado, and Ohio’s Geauga Lake.
But Premier Parks wanted to grow. In 1998, they purchased a down-on-its-luck Six Flags Theme Parks Inc. from Time Warner for $1.86 billion. With control of the Six Flags name, Premier renamed itself and its parks, and Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom was born. The new Six Flags was eager to expand its brand and build out its portfolio, and had particularly high hopes for the Kentucky park.
Image: Jeremy Thompson, Flickr (license)
Allegedly, Six Flags was poised to supercharge Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom by aggressively expanding to build a Gotham City area, re-branding two of the park’s existing rides into the DC Super Hero brand, building a new river rapids ride, and installing two brand new headlining roller coasters: a B&M floorless coaster with a half-dozen inversions and an Intamin launched impulse coaster with spiraling towers.
In other words, Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom was going to be a contender.
A pre-emptive strike
Image: Jeremy Thompson, Flickr (license)
Meanwhile, just a few hours north near Cincinnati, Kings Island had changed owners, too. As Six Flags moved toward ambitious plans for Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, Paramount’s Kings Island allegedly caught wind. Now under the control of Viacom and backed by Paramount’s brands and identities, the park simply couldn’t allow a rival just a few hours away to grow into a threat.
In 1999, Paramount’s Kings Island launched a pre-emptive strike against the radical growth of Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom with an aggressive $40 million two-year expansion plan that would give the park an entirely new themed “land.” Built around the existing Congo Falls and Top Gun: The Jet Coaster, this new area was meant to resemble a bright, kinetic, fast-paced studio backlot where an action film might be shot. It was called the Paramount Action Zone.
Image: Jeremy Thompson, Flickr (license)
The new Paramount Action Zone was stocked with loud, brash, bright rides perfect for the looming 21st century. In time for the land’s 1999 opening, it had added Drop Zone: Stunt Tower (the tallest gyro drop in the world, 315 feet tall with a revolving disc of 40) and FACE/OFF (above, an inverted boomerang coaster with flipped seating requiring that riders look right into the eyes of their friends as they race through three inversions forward, then fall backward through them again), all centered around a studio-style water tower (hosting an action-packed “impromptu” secret agent show) and a restaurant called Stunt Crew Grill, offering food for the on-set “extras” (that’s us).
But Drop Zone and FACE/OFF alone would not win Paramount’s Kings Island victory against Six Flags’ own plans for the region. If Kings Island were put a stop to Kentucky Kingdom’s growth even before it started, it needed to go big… Very big. Perhaps appropriate for Paramount’s movie studio styling, their plan was wildly cinematic: a sequel.
There’s nothing more natural for a movie studio than a sequel. And as anyone knows, the best way to make a sequel is to make it bigger, louder, and (most importantly) more expensive than the original.
That’s why, in 1999, a massive wooden crate appeared inside Paramount’s Kings Island. As guests walked by, they’d hear deep snarling and clawing from within the box, and it would violently shake, tethered to the ground only by massive, rattling metal chains.
On May 11, 1999 – twenty years after the opening of The Beast, media and guests gathered beneath the towering structure of the wooden creature to announce a sequel unlike any other on Earth. The mysterious sounds inside of the wooden crate grew louder and angrier as the announcement continued until its name was finally unveiled. In 2000, Paramount Action Zone would be home to the biggest, loudest, greatest sequel of all time: SON OF BEAST.
At more than $20 million, Son of Beast would be the largest investment ever at Paramount’s Kings Island. It would also be the tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster ever, the second longest (leaving the length record to its father), and the first wooden “hypercoaster” breaking the 200-foot height barrier. The addition of Son of Beast would also give Kings Island more wooden roller coaster track than any park on Earth (22,619 feet – more than 4 miles).
But the most unimaginable feature of Son of Beast wasn’t its record-breaking height, speed, drop, or title. Rather, it was something few could’ve imagined: Son of Beast would be the only looping wooden roller coaster on Earth.
The reveal of the remarkable ride model at the announcement earned disbelieving gasps and applause from the gathered crowd who couldn’t have imagined that a decade later, the largest and most ambitious addition ever at Kings Island would be reduced to a pile of shattered lumber.
Building a new Beast
Son of Beast was designed by famed roller coaster designer Werner Stengel, a sort of thrill ride Renaissance man who founded Ingenieurbüro Stengel GmbH, a German engineering firm.
Stengel’s work early on led to the development of the modern loop (a clothoid, or reversed teardrop shape compared to earlier, perfectly circular loops) and the idea of orienting track banking around a human rider’s heartline for comfort. Stengel was instrumental in the design of many definitive thrill rides today, including Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster, El Toro, California Screamin’ and a staggering 590 more, including his celebrated 500th design: Cedar Point’s Maverick.
When it came time to build the behemoth Son of Beast, Paramount Parks turned to the Roller Coaster Corporation of America (RCCA), perhaps best well known for Six Flags Fiesta Texas’ Rattler (1992). RCCA got to work constructing the ride, comprised of 2.5 million board feet of wood. Southern yellow pine made up the extensive and complex support structure with the wooden track piles made of Douglas fir. Over 2,400 concrete footers were dug 11 feet into the ground. Altogether, the ride used a staggering 225,000 21-inch steel bolts.
But from the start, a few rough areas signaled that Son of Beast would have an even worse attitude than its father…
On January 11, 2000 – well into the ride’s construction, a 50 by 100 foot section of wooden supports collapsed as particularly strong gusts of wind ravaged the ride. The unfinished track section had only been held up by temporary supports, though, and Paramount’s Kings Island officials announced that the ride’s April opening wouldn’t be delayed by the temporary setback.
As opening date neared, they changed their tune. Partway through construction, Paramount Parks Inc. fired RCCA entirely and set out to finish constructing the ride by themselves, in house. (A little later, after the ride’s first season, in November 2000, they sued RCCA [as Roller Coaster Company of Ohio – the contracted designer and constructor], Wooden Structures Inc. [the lead structural engineering firm] and even Universal Forest Products of Hamilton [who provided the lumber] alleging that the very design of Son of Beast contained insufficient support structures and other defects that Paramount was then required to correct – more on that in a bit.)
Son of Beast opened later than expected: May 26, 2000. Like most highly anticipated sequels, guests were ecstatic about the record-shattering ride, even if they portrayed an air of skepticism. Could Son of Beast really be a worthy follow-up to one of the greatest wooden roller coasters ever? Short answer: it depends who you ask.
Setting the scene
If there’s one thing that the original Beast is celebrated for it, it’s secrecy. The ride is famously concealed deep in the woods of Ohio, occupying 35 acres of forest. So well hidden is The Beast that you can barely catch a glimpse of its 110-foot tall lift hill unless you know where to look.
Located deep in the park’s Rivertown section, the ride’s backstory is understated, but clear: there’s a menacing creature lurking in the mysterious woods on the edge of an early Ohio settlement. What is it? No one knows. What does it look like? We can’t be sure. What does the ride do? Where does it go? The only way to find out is to face it.
Image: Jeremy Thompson, Flickr (license)
The Beast is all about fear of the unknown…. Guests hoping to ride first have to leave the historic village of Rivertown behind and trek to an old, broken down, dried up mill outside of town. As if it could be the subject of its own urban legend, the abandoned mill is adorned with a few wooden signs: “Ignore the screaming in the woods.” “Everything is fine.” Are those drops of blood? The mystery and intrigue of the Beast are half the fun.
Can you find Son of Beast in the map above? Better question: how could you miss it?
Subtlety is not one of the words you’d use to describe Son of Beast. Son of Beast absolutely towers over Paramount’s Kings Island. The ride is located in the brand new Paramount Action Zone alongside action movie thrill machines like FACE/OFF, Top Gun, and Drop Zone: Stunt Tower. And Son of Beast isn’t quite as well disguised as its father.
Image: Martin Lewison, Flickr (license)
If The Beast were a movie, it would be a slow-building 1970s thriller; a mysterious nail-biter focused on drama and intrigue… On the other hand, Son of Beast is an action-packed summer blockbuster sequel… car chases, explosions, giant monsters… forget secrecy and certainly forget subtlety. Leaving his father behind in the quiet forests of Rivertown, Son of Beast towers over the frantic, kinetic Paramount Action Zone backlot.
First, the queue for Son of Beast proceeds down a pathway lined with chain link fence, passing under a high-security bridge. Flashing blue warning lights illuminate the path, signaling that this sequel departs from the antique Rivertown.
The ride’s station is Outpost 5, a metallic platform that’s high-tech and even higher-security. The radical shift from The Beast’s setting is intentional. In this not-so-subtle sequel, the mysterious offspring of the Beast has been captured by an unknown agency and relocated to a high-security pen for examination. Your job is simple: board a Perimeter Surveillance Vehicle and ensure that everything’s going smoothly in there.
Image: Paul Bonifield, KIExtreme
Think you can handle what Son of Beast has in store? Let’s take a ride.
Son of Beast
Image: Jeremy Thompson, Flickr (license)
As your train slowly advances out of Son of Beast’s station, you pass beneath the towering first drop – a veritable engineering marvel of criss-crossing wooden pieces that might as well be toothpicks thanks to the grand size of the structure. As you coast slowly forward and through the unintentional tunnel of wood, directly ahead, something comes into view: a towering vertical loop.
But before we get there, we’ve got a whole lot of track to navigate. Right away, the roller coaster train twists and dips to the left, diving down a 51-foot drop that’s bigger than the main hills on many wooden roller coasters. But on Son of Beast, this is merely a warm-up. The 51-foot drop is a tease, meant to build up enough speed to bring the train around to the base of the coaster’s lift hill. Two. Hundred. Eighteen. Feet.
The train engages with the anti-rollbacks of the towering lift hill, proudly producing that unnerving click-click-click that serves to build mind-numbing anticipation and anxiety as the train advances slowly up to record-breaking heights. The speed leftover from the first drop is enough to jump-start the climb, but it’ll be more than 40 agonizing seconds of fear until the train reaches its apex.
And unlike a traditional roller coaster, just because you’re at the top doesn’t mean you’re about to fall. Instead, Son of Beast teases yet again, dangling riders high up in the air along a dipped stretch of track. So terrifying is this 20-story dip that it leaves riders begging for the real thing. And boy, do they get it.
Image: Jeremy Thompson, Flickr (license)
The train levels out and aligns with a distant section of track. The only way to get there is through a 216 foot drop at 55.7-degrees. Along the way, the train reaches its top speed: a staggering 78 miles per hour.
The train rumbles violently down the massive drop and up a second hill. Son of Beast’s 164-foot tall second hill is still taller than the next tallest wooden roller coaster on Earth. And here, the ride really picks up steam. While you might expect Son of Beast to be an out-and-back, terrain-hugging roller coaster like its father, you’d be wrong. What follows will not be a series of ever-smaller airtime hills. Instead, Son of Beast, tears off to the right and enters into the ride’s iconic helix often called the Rose Bowl. The massive inclined double helix is dizzying and intense, the train battering along as it hammers against the towering structure at well over 70 miles per hour.
Around and around through the helix, the train spirals. It’s massive, and it’s wild.
Image: Joel Rogers, CoasterGallery.com
Then, the train levels out and enters the mid-course brakes – a brief moment of relaxation as straight track fills the horizon. But a breather is short-lived, as the track banks and dips off ahead. The destination? The ride’s signature: a 118-foot-tall vertical loop that makes Son of Beast the only looping wooden roller coaster on Earth.
Up until now, traditional knowledge has used a few very simple ways of differentiating steel and wooden roller coasters. For example, steel coasters are often smooth, and wood coasters are often rough. A tried-and-true rule, though, is that steel coasters can go upside down, and wooden ones can’t. Son of Beast famously bucks the rule, but now, facing a loop taller than most roller coasters main drops, you may question whether that rule really needed to have been broken.
Notice the size of the people next to the towering loop. Image: Dane Thomas, KICentral
But the train sails through the 118-foot tall engineering marvel as smooth as glass. In fact, the famed loop is the gentlest part of the ride. That’s because the structure of the loop – its backbone – is steel, giving the loop a rigid and sleek skeleton. But make no mistake, the rails are 100% wood, making this undeniably the world’s only wooden loop.
The train then soars into a second massive double-helix (this one nestled into the curve of the ride’s towering lift hill, creating an illusion of endless wood wrapping all around), races over a few last bunny hops (still at breakneck speed, mind you), before finally arriving back at Outpost 5.
We invite you if you dare to take a virtual ride on Son of Beast via the video below. Be warned: even digitally, it’s a doozy.
Taming the Beast
Remember Six Flags’ ambitious plans for Kentucky Kingdom? To put it lightly, Kings Island’s $40 million investment in Action Zone (with FACE/OFF, Drop Zone, and Son of Beast) had successfully scared Six Flags away. Defeated, the company more or less let the Kentucky park wither.
Instead, they took the plans they’d concocted for Kentucky Kingdom and shipped them up north to another of their new parks when Ohio’s third park, Geauga Lake, became Six Flags Ohio and successfully merged with a full sized SeaWorld to create the world’s largest theme park: the ill-fated Six Flags Worlds of Adventure. (We chronicled the unbelievable rise and staggering fall of that park in its own Lost Legends: Geauga Lake feature – a must-read for park enthusiasts and the most popular story we’ve told here on Theme Park Tourist.) Long story short: if Six Flags couldn’t use Kentucky Kingdom to decimate Kings Island, then they would use Geauga Lake / Six Flags Ohio / Six Flags Worlds of Adventure to instead take on the granddaddy of them all: Cedar Point.
Speaking of which, there’s no doubt that the year 2000 felt like a leap forward in the amusement park industry there, too. Cedar Point had shattered records and expectations by debuting Millennium Force, the tallest, fastest roller coaster ever, and the first to break the 300-foot height barrier. In the same month and just a few hours south, Paramount’s Kings Island had broken the 200-foot wooden barrier and built the tallest, fastest, second-longest, and only looping wooden roller coaster on Earth.
The momentum must’ve seemed unstoppable.
But take a look at Kings Island’s park map from 2010 and you’ll notice a structure conspicuously missing from Action Zone. Let’s confess what we all know: Son of Beast today is remembered as one of the biggest failures and theme park busts of all time. How could a record-breaking ride fall so quickly? Read on…
To understand Son of Beast, it’s important to understand the way that traditional wooden roller coasters are built. The structures are cut on-site out and secured with bolts and plates to form the intricate support systems. Then for the track itself, layers of laminated wood are stacked, and flattened steel strips serve as the running rails for trains’ wheels. The inherent imperfections in the supports and track are what give wooden roller coasters the bumpy, rough feeling that so differentiates them from the precise steel coasters. Son of Beast, like most wooden roller coasters rides built before 2000, was a classic wooden roller coaster with all the imperfections that come along with it.
Image: Joel Rogers, CoasterGallery.com
Today, a glance at the lineup of the world’s tallest wooden roller coasters is telling. Almost all of them were built post-2000, and almost all of them are built by Intamin or Rocky Mountain Construction. Those companies have found a sweet spot with two very different wooden roller coaster models.
Intamin has its Plug-and-Play line of wooden coasters like El Toro and Colossos that top annual polls as favorite wooden roller coasters. But a ride on them feels more like a steel coaster, with smooth-as-glass transitions, effortless airtime hills, and record heights. That’s because Intamin’s Plug-and-Play roller coasters are laser-cut in a factory and, as their name suggests, connected together on site like LEGO blocks, pre-cut and mathematically designed. Without the inherent bumps and imperfections of traditional wooden roller coasters, they feel almost exactly like steel roller coasters and thus can reach incredible heights and speeds very smoothly and comfortably. Made of wood? Technically, yes. But they don’t feel like your average wooden coaster.
Rocky Mountain Construction, a newcomer, is increasingly renowned for converting old and often painful wooden roller coasters back into headlining attractions. They’ve done so by gradually making the steel running rails larger and thicker to the point that many coaster enthusiasts think they’re technically better classified as steel than wood, but the unique track configuration allows them to easily race through corkscrews, heartline rolls, overbanked turns, and loops like it’s nothing – evident on rides like Dollywood’s Lightning Rod or the very famous rebirths of old wooden giants like Goliath at Six Flags Great America (above).
Whatever the case, Son of Beast might still be around today if Paramount Parks had had the foresight to wait just another year or two when Intamin could’ve manufactured the ride. As it was, Son of Beast opened one measly year before Colossos (Intamin’s first Plug-and-Play) took the industry by storm. Almost certainly, a 200-foot wooden coaster with a loop made by Intamin would top coaster enthusiasts polls today.
So, think of the traditional, classic wooden roller coaster at your local park and the way it shuffles, rattles, and bumps over every imperfection in the track. It’s a charming, “classic” feeling on many rides, but crank it up to 80 miles per hour, 218 feet, and through crippling double helices and your opinion may change.
Son of Beast was rough. Violently rough. It was an aggressive and, frankly, shocking experience that was sincerely not for the faint of heart. You wouldn’t dare take grandma, and maybe not even mom. It was no secret that Son of Beast could rattle you (literally). Extreme thrill seekers cited that as half the fun. The unsuspecting public might not have known the extent of it until it was too late.
But really, none of that mattered after 2006.
The accident
Image: Jeremy Thompson, Flickr (license)
On June 30, 2006, Cedar Fair – owners of Cedar Point and, by that time, Geauga Lake – announced their purchase of the Paramount Parks for $1.24 billion, inheriting their five North American theme parks including Paramount’s Kings Island.
Nine days later, on July 9, 2006, a structural failure in the “Rose Bowl” double helix of Son of Beast created a bump in the track, causing a train full of riders to jolt. Details have always been scarce, but many fans speculate that a timber in the ride’s structure cracked, sending a jolt down the track that upset a train barreling along the course. One way or another, all twenty-seven riders were evacuated and rushed to the hospital. Seventeen were released within five hours, and two were admitted.
In an ensuing lawsuit investigation by the Ohio Department of Agriculture (the state body responsible for overseeing safe operation of the state’s amusement park rides), investigators argued that the park’s operators were aware of structural defects in the Son of Beast coaster that “put passengers at risk.” They insisted that Paramount Parks Inc. had fired the Roller Coaster Company of Ohio and set out to fix the ride itself using a “Band-Aid style,” simply adding structural supports wherever they thought the ride needed extra timber without taking into account the loads placed on the ride or even using a computer model to determine where additional support was possible. Instead, investigators argued, they decided to “wait and see what happened… They never really stopped and said ‘we’ve got a problem with this ride as a whole.’”
Barely a week into their ownership of the park, Cedar Fair announced that Son of Beast was down for the count and that the ride would not reopen for the rest of the 2006 season.
The opening of the 2007 came and went, too. The ride was standing but not operating in April, May, and June. Finally on July 4, 2007, Son of Beast was back. But something was different. The original trains designed by Premier Rides were gone, replaced by new, lighter trains by ride manufacturer Gerstlauer. The hope, it would seem, is that the lighter trains would produce less stress on the wooden structure and reduce the violent jackhammering of riders through the Rose Bowl, to boot.
However, the use of the lighter trains required one substantial edit to the ride. When it reopened in 2007, the loop was no more. It’s important to note that the loop had not been involved whatsoever in the accident from 2006. Instead, the lighter trains installed to lessen the structural stress on the ride simply couldn’t navigate the loop effectively, meaning that the loop had to go. Park spokesperson Don Helbig said in 2009, “The removal of loop was a decision the park made so we could use different trains. The trains the ride now uses are lighter and more comfortable than the original trains.”
While fans will forever debate how important the loop really was to the ride (in terms of popularity, pacing, marketing, etc.) the removal seemed to shift guest attitudes nearly as much as news of the accident had. Still, Son of Beast raced on violently without its signature loop. Until…
Another accident and an ending
On June 16, 2009 – less than three years after a structural failure sent a train’s worth of riders to the hospital, and just two years after re-opening without a loop – a woman claimed to have suffered an aneurysm (a burst blood vessel in the brain) due to a ride on Son of Beast a month before – May 31. The park’s spokesperson, Don Helbig, noted that there were no other reports of injuries on Son of Beast that year and that there was no record of the woman seeking medical attention at Kings Island, but noted that the ride would shut down (again) as a precaution during an investigation by the state of Ohio.
The Ohio Department of Agriculture returned to inspect the ride yet again, but this time they could only note that no irregularities were found with the ride. The state gave Cedar Fair the go-ahead to re-open Son of Beast, but the ride didn’t re-open. Not in 2009.
For the rest of that year, Son of Beast was standing, but not operating – a massive, towering, iconic structure that literally cast its shadow across the park. As you might expect, rumors ran rampant about the trains that had flown off the track during testing (never happened), all the people who had died on the ride (none had, though at least one post-ride death was officially determined to be thanks to a pre-existing condition, just like deaths after Mission: SPACE or Tower of Terror) and that it would be re-opening soon (it wouldn’t). Primarily, fans looked at the developments Intamin and Rocky Mountain Construction had made in transforming wooden roller coasters into modern, smooth thrill machines and figured that Son of Beast would be the ultimate victory: turning the world’s tallest, fastest, (and if you asked many, roughest) wooden roller coaster into a headlining ride again. Not in 2010.
For literal years, fans clamored to wonder what would become of Son of Beast and if the ride would re-open. They eagerly awaited the cranes to arrive to begin the inevitable transformation of Son of Beast. But they didn’t arrive. Not in 2011.
All the while, Kings Island noted diplomatically that they simply hadn’t decided the ride’s fate yet. They noted that they’d explored a few options (probably including a renovation, but who could say?) and just hadn’t decided their course. And think about it – in the real world, removing a behemoth ride like Son of Beast might have a price tag comparable to repairing it. Or, comparable enough to make them competing options.
But by 2012, they figured it out.
That spring, the ride came crumbling down. Literally. Like a tower of toothpicks, Son of Beast was demolished as seen in the must-see video here:
Resting in peace
Say what you will about Son of Beast, it was one hell of a ride. Even with today’s smooth-as-glass wooden roller coasters, no one else has dared to cross the 200-foot barrier again. Even if Son of Beast didn’t become a classic, it certainly changed the face of the theme park world and will always be remembered for what it was and what it dared to do.
In 2014, the massive plot of land Son of Beast occupied was at least partially put to use with a deserving follow-up: Banshee, the world’s longest inverted roller coaster. Banshee soars through the uneven terrain that once housed the massive Rose Bowl, even zooming past Son of Beast’s Outpost 5 station (which remains standing, used as a haunted house during the Halloween season).
Image: Joel Rogers, CoasterGallery.com
Fitting the folklore of the Irish spirit it’s named for, the queue line for Banshee weaves through a foggy Moorish cemetery filled with cracked and aged tombstones. In a clever nod to the former resident, the most prominent of the gravestones is a ten-foot tall stone column adorned with a bronze plaque of Son of Beast’s logo. All day and night, an eternal flame burns in memorial to the lost coaster.
It must sting that Kings Island spent $20 million to build the ride and allegedly a further $10 – $20 million to fix it. That’s to say nothing of the lawsuits and settlements the park has dealt with after the ride’s various mechanical failings, and the legal battle Paramount Parks endured with RCCA and its affiliates. If you’re counting, that’s nearly $40 million just to end up with a coaster as painful as the horrific Drachen Fire.
Even then, we wish we could call Son of Beast the biggest failure Kings Island endured in the 21st century, but it’s not. Just two years later, the park spent another $20 million building what we argue might be one of the best themed rides ever, much less at a regional, seasonal amusement park in Ohio. TOMB RAIDER: The Ride was a stunning, immersive, innovative thrill ride / dark ride hybrid meeting and exceeding Disney or Universal’s standards. So exceptional was the ride that we chronicled its incredible story in its own in-depth Lost Legends: TOMB RAIDER – The Ride feature, too, and it’s well worth a read. Spoiler alert: it’s gone, too. Another $20 million down the tubes, albeit for very, very different reasons.
For people who grew up at Paramount’s Kings Island with headlining rides like Tomb Raider: The Ride, Son of Beast, Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle, the Italian Job: Stunt Track, Crocodile Dundee’s Boomerang Bay water park, and Nickelodeon Universe, the park they visit today must feel very, very different. Things have changed a lot, and in a very short amount of time. Maybe that’s why people are still so emotionally impacted by the stories of those lost rides that make the Kings Island of just a decade ago feel so far away.
Many of the people who describe Son of Beast as overly rough and uncomfortable are the same people who are heartbroken to see it closed. Its story is unique and unforgettable, and regardless of what you thought of the ride, its life and death are nothing short of fascinating. For those who got the chance to experience it, we’d love to hear your thoughts and memories in the comments below. For everyone else, just imagine the bravado it takes to green light a ride like Son of Beast.
No matter what you thought of the most controversial roller coaster to ever exist, we can all agree on one thing: the sequel is never better than the original. Just ask The Beast, still zooming through the forests of Ohio – and still the longest wooden roller coaster in the world – thirty-seven seasons later.
