Fahrenheit (Hersheypark)

If you’d like to read my full review of the ride please follow this link. Download link for Fahrenheit is in the large title image at the bottom of the page.

There’s an interesting story behind this ride. Sometime around  I was poking around the Michigan’s Adventure website and noticed on their webpage for Timbersfest a t-shirt design I had not seen before at the park, advertised for the even. I looked close at it and realized it was done in NoLimits. Huh, I never knew anyone to try a Shivering Timbers re-creation besides me. Curious, I clicked the link for a larger look at the design to see how well they did compared to my version. They appeared to be about the same quality. About the exact same quality. Down to the custom supporting and poorly shaped first drop…

After a few inquiring emails (in which I tried my best to appear sternly disapproving despite my finding the whole scenario hilarious) I found myself being offered a job by the CEO of the t-shirt company that produces those shirts a job as a freelance graphic designer specializing in NoLimits (along with being paid for all unauthorized work). I accepted.

I never got that many projects lined up until I think they dropped using NoLimits for their designs all together (maybe the NL team started asking for their royalties as well, or maybe they just decided it didn’t look that great and photographs were the better result). Besides the designs I had completed before this happened, I got one more ‘official’ project for Six Flags in, an “SF” designed in curique B&M track, much harder than it appeared to be due to the hugely contrasting track sizes they requested requiring me to have it zoom way in and out; here’s a screenshot of the final design, not sure if it ever appeared in any of the parks or not. The next project they offered was if I could do a re-creation of Fahrenheit. I said sure, and made a finished track in about a week that January. They were undecided about whether they were going to use it or not, and eventually it became apparent they weren’t getting the deal, so I ended up keeping the track for my own personal use (ahem, without getting paid for making it anyway…). Which is a huge shame, because when I visited Hersheypark that summer I found only one t-shirt design that seemed better suited for a 10-year old along with some completely generic stuff that’s just has the name of the ride. A missed opportunity for their merchandising department to do something cool for their hot new ride. Their loss.

I’m really surprised how well it turned out for taking so little time to make. All my other projects were months long commitments that took a lot of trial and error to get anywhere near acceptable, and this one just sort of fell into place on my first try. There are no extras beside the cartexture, but from off-ride I think it looks quite accurate. The version I have here is a tweaked version of the one I originally submitted to CoasterSims. That one was uploaded in mid-February, 2008, before much of the ride was even built, so I just had the silhouette of the layout on the ride’s website to go off of (that NL design in the videos was pretty crap, wasn’t it?) As such, it wasn’t as accurate as it could have been. This version corrects a lot of that, but since it was also edited from the AHG file (thankfully I used long segments) the track is also slightly rougher than the CS version, a few more banking twitches. In terms of building technique, this is still probably the worst on this project page, however considering the circumstances it was made under, I’m still quite proud of it. I wish I could make more tracks on the fly like this, but without the pressure I end up becoming too much of a perfectionist and never get them done.

Enjoy, and please leave feedback below after you’ve had a chance to ride. Click image below to download.

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