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| Patiently waiting to ride. |
Almost two weeks ago I saw the note on the ACE western PA Facebook
page. They were working with the travel
channel to do a shoot for the Insane Coaster Wars at Kennywood and they were
looking for riders. I had never been to
Kennywood but I had participated in the Insane Coaster Wars shoot for Magnum
and Maverick at Cedar Point last year so I decided it would be a fun way to see
the park.
I arrived shortly before the mandatory 7:30 a.m. arrival
time and stood at the front gates of Kennywood with a group of about 40 other
coaster enthusiasts. We were briefed on
what to expect with the shoot. There
would be delays between dispatches to setup up and adjust the cameras and to do
rider interviews. Once we passed through
the security checkpoint we filled out photo release papers, had our picture
taken with the release form and headed back to Phantom’s Revenge.
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| Cameras were adjusted and moved throughout the day. |
Once we walked through the queue line we arrived in the
station to see Kennywood employees giving the trains a good cleaning and the
camera crew from Indigo Films setting cameras up on the train and
elsewhere. While we patiently waited for
someone to give us a signal to hop on board one of the cameramen grabbed
footage of us waiting and cheering, amping us up for our early morning ride.
Everything was in place, the lift was started and the lap
bars were checked. The ride was ready
for its first run. The film crew checked
the camera setup after the train completed its first lap which meant more waiting;
luckily maintenance was doing a morning check on Thunderbolt so we had
something to entertain us.
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| The Copter Cam taking off. |
The process continued like this for the remainder of the
filming. The film crew kept checking
cameras and adding more cameras or moving them from location to location. In addition to the on board and off ride
cameras they had a helicopter cam. This
remote controlled camera had eight arms with propeller blades and a camera
mounted underneath. The camera could be
seen hovering over much of the ride.
Kennywood offered us a few extra rides after the film crew
wrapped up an intense morning of shooting.
This was when I had the chance to get an amazing ride in the front
seat. They had a voting booth placed at
the end of the exit ramp for people to vote for their favorite coasters.
Phantom's Revenge is a steel roller coaster located at Kennywood. The ride has been at the park since 1991. It was originally called Steel Phantom but was renamed to Phantom's Revenge in 2001 when the ride was modified and the inversions were removed. The ride is unique in the fact that the largest drop is on the second hill. There was no date given as to when the Insane Coaster Wars episode that will feature Phantom's Revenge will be aired.
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| Enjoying early morning rides on Phantom's Revenge. |
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