Full Throttle construction at Six Flags Magic Mountain is still plowing ahead at full steam. This update is from Saturday, January 12, 2013.
The first thing I noticed as I was walking towards the park from the parking lot was that Superman was launching. This was a very promising sign. As I reached the Superman Plaza, there were no barricades and it appeared to be open:
As I continued towards the ride, I couldn’t help notice Bonnie Rabjohn (SFMM Park President/orange scarf) and a few of her staff walking towards me. I’m sure she was inspecting the status of the Full Throttle construction:
I would have briefly stopped her to say Hi, but despite a few conversations I’ve had with her in the past, I’m sure she wouldn’t have any clue as to who I was.
Even though the footers in the plaza aren’t complete yet, the park did an excellent job at getting them covered up and protected so that they could open Superman for the weekend:
These are the footers in progress on the other side of the plaza:
I’m impressed with how close they came to the edge without disrupting the existing fence:
Looking over that fence, towards the front of the park, you can see some new footers that have went in between Gold Rusher and Superman. Gold Rusher was not affected at all:
This is looking over the fence towards the backside of the park:
It’s amazing to me how unassuming the footers look once they’re in the ground and filled with concrete. You would never know how deep they go just by seeing a picture like this:
From the Sky Tower, you can see that there isn’t any hindrance in getting to Superman:
Looking back out towards the front of the park, lots of footers going in everywhere:
Another new footer, just outside the entrance to the tunnel:
On the opposite side of the back path, there are two large wells that each contain two footers. The second well is towards the top of the photo, in the bright sunlight:
This is the second well, looking back up the hill towards the first one:
Several more footers along the hillside, next to the tunnel:
Anyone know what this is? You can just make it out in the previous photo, in the middle, just above the blue wall. It looks old, so I’m assuming that they unearthed it as they were excavating the hillside. It’s way off to the side of the tunnel, so I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with the Metro beam. I can’t think of anything else that has ever been in this area other than perhaps Eagle’s Flight, but it looks too wimpy and too low for one of those supports:
Here’s what’s going on in the Full Throttle construction area in the front of the park:
I tell you what…that drilling machine has been busy, busy, busy this past week:
This is the same area as seen from the ground:
When I first saw all the red tape, I thought perhaps they were marking off the station or something similar. However, after reviewing the area from the Sky Tower, it was obvious that the tape was just marking off the holes that hadn’t been filled yet:
Anyone know what these might be? My first thought was that they were concrete forms for the footers, but they look too round/wide and too short. Besides, I’ve never seen them use forms before. They also have them protected with plastic and it looks like they have some sort of brick pattern on them. It’s way too early for any type of architectural detail elements to be brought on-site, so I have no idea what they could be:
Wow! That’s a lot of progress! Maybe they will get this thing open in Spring as they intended to in the first place! Was the park busy today? No more insane SP processing lines?
The season pass lines were still crazy long as I entered the park around opening, but when I went back by there around 4:30, there was hardly anyone in line and the inside processing center had already been closed.
Looks like the picture with President and a few of her staff walking towards you that 2 of the people are looking directly at you and …. you might have finally captured a photo of a SFMM employee using a cell phone while perhaps on the clock in view of the guests. Perhaps Bonnie just checking the morning line on the Bronco game.
I think they were looking at me because as soon as I saw her, I stopped cold in my tracks and raised the camera up. Since I was the only person around, it was probably pretty obvious, even though I was still a ways away. I was totally going to make a comment about the cell phone, but surely the executive staff is exempt from that rule, right?
As an ex employee of SFMM the only people able to use a phone in front of guest view is the supervisors and up.
Great update Kurt, as always.
It is good to see that S:EFK is open again, it looks like they will try to keep it open as much as they can.
haha! I was right about them saying that goldrusher and sefk were closed just for last weekend. That’s good the park decided to try and keep their attractions open. Besides goldrush and sefk both help them become the coaster capital of the world.
Just curious: when will you take Deja Vu off your page header and put Full Throttle on?
I’m actually working on a complete redesign of my site. I also have a graphic artist working on a custom logo for me. I’m not sure I’m going to bother with changing my existing header since I hope to have all the new stuff live in the next month or so.
Did you have a red jacket today? I went to the park today aswell.
Nope…black down vest.
Oh, Then it was some other guy :p
Great update and lots of progress! Im excited to see how it will all turn out! Anyone know if there is a primary theme for the coaster itself yet or is it still on the drawing board?Thanks!
What ever happened to the fact sheet? is that going to be released sometime soon?
I’ve said this many times, but I still find it odd that no statistics have been released for this ride.
Thx for the update
Again any new track and do u think the pak will be busy on mlk day
Great to see so much Full Throttle construction going on. I’m wondering what’s going onto the footers near the station. Maybe that’s where the launch will take place, and what’s currently standing of the old Log Jammer station will be a part of the queue or maintenance for the ride. With footers on opposite sides of the Superman plaza, it appears that the track will arch up and over with minimal visibility issues.
I have no clue what that thing was that you saw on the hillside near Metro’s old tunnel. No ride ever ran in that area before.
I was thinking it might have been where a speaker was bolted down? The object on the hillside that is.
Hey Kurt, I was there yesterday and looked for you but no luck. What a great day! My friend and I took advantage of the new Gold Pass early entry line, and it did open 10 minutes early. We decided to head to Goliath when they opened, unlike everyone else who headed towards Tatsu. We ended up getting to ride Goliath 3 times in the front seat with nobody else on the train but us! The signs out front said that Gold Rusher and S:EFK were closed, but as you said, they were open and we did get to ride both of those. Thanks for the update!
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Very glad to see they are opening Superman on the weekends, would have been idiotic to close it for months again.
However, they need to be more proactive about informing visitors of ride status. I was going to visit the park this weekend, but decided against, as I really wanted superman and assumed it was closed.
Do u think sefk will be open for the mlk day I’d like to go on it
I have no idea, Bob. I don’t work for the park and I have absolutely no insight to their ride operating schedule or construction plans. However, considering that it’s a holiday Monday that they’re open on, I’d be surprised if they didn’t do everything possible to get as many rides open as they could.
The more I think about it, I feel as if the launch is gonna be much faster than the advertised 70mph! I know my basis might be odd but I was thinking Scream is advertised as moving at 65mph and the loop is around 120 ft if I’m not mistaken! Just for comparison, there is a little bit of hang time in that 120 ft loop, I just don’t see how Full Throttle is going to pull off a 40ft higher loop with only 5 extra mph! 70mph seems to be just good enough for a little over 140ft in the case of Viper! I know they are all different types of coasters with different dynamics but I still feel some surprising details where purposely left out.
i just want to know how much more, if any, is there to full throttle and i dont mean the hologram of the other train rolling back at you in the tunnel,hense the backwards launch. OK i totally made that up but if that does happen i was the 1st to say it.
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