Vaughan, Ontario – Saturday, September 15th & Sunday, September 16th, 2012
Anchoring the end of Action Zone is Behemoth.
Behemoth opened in 2008 as Cedar Fair's first big investment in Canada's Wonderland. Needless to say, it was a big contrast to the decades of off-the-shelf compact coasters Paramount had been building. Apparently being located next to one of North America's largest metropolitan centers made Cedar Fair think the park had been underutilized by its previous owners.
Despite standing 230 feet tall, Behemoth is now only the third tallest attraction Cedar Fair has built at Canada's Wonderland since taking over in 2007.
Behemoth was also the first coaster to debut B&M's V-shaped seating pattern, breaking years of Swiss tradition of four-abreast or more seating.
Random owl sculpture hanging out in Behemoth's otherwise utilitarian station shed. Is this some sort of Canadian thing?
Behemoth ascending the 230 foot lift.
About to crest the 75 degree drop.
When it was first announced in 2008, they claimed Behemoth would have an 85 degree drop, despite the fact the concept art clearly could not support the claim.
Behemoth's long train give its sharply parabolic camelback hills a distinctly different flavor from the other steel monster across the park. The forward/backward acceleration pushes you around in your seat along with the light negative g-force, since the cars at either extreme of the train are not following the natural path of the gravitational pull. The rest of the train is either slowing you back or pushing you forward, and you feel that in your seat. By the way, this effect makes the front row feel much wilder than the back.
Hammerhead turn comes at the far end of the layout beyond the water park.
After the hammerhead, Behemoth completes three consecutive airtime hills on the return run. In my preference, airtime hills are a bit similar to exclamation points. One (!) is a way to quickly and efficiently generate a burst of excitement. Two (!!) feels like sloppy repetition. Three (!!!) becomes a deliberate recurring motif, and draws more attention than nearly anything else around it. (By the way, I thought Behemoth's layout sequencing was more effective than Diamondback's.)
I've read that Behemoth -- the land monster -- was originally supposed to be called Leviathan -- the sea monster -- for reasons that are obvious in this photo. But they chickened out because they worried Leviathan was a too complicated sounding word for the Canadian tongue. Yet after it was a success they decided to revive the original name for their totally landlocked coaster on the opposite side of the park.
The second half of Behemoth following the midcourse brake is unique for having these almost Rye Aeroplane Coaster-esque stacked spiraling drops, yet the brake takes too much out of it and the spirals are too conservatively designed for it to yield very much excitement.
Fortunately the final hills, which I always figured would be an over-trimmed dead area (especially since the spirals failed to deliver), actually did have enough of a kick to them that the finale wasn't a total let-down.
And that's the ride.
Overall I liked Behemoth, a bit more than I would have expected. The layout I'd rate above Diamondback's, since it organizes its element line-up to sustain motifs and give the whole experience a sense of progression (airtime hills, spirals) much better than Diamondback's jumbled mixture of maneuvers.
With the longer train length it also has lots of oddly dynamic airtime that gives the ride a bit more character and helps to differentiate it from the other big Beemer across the park.
Unfortunately it's also a bit inconsistent, with this final upward spiral in particular being one of the most decidedly "meh" elements to spring out of a B&M blueprint in the last decade. The flat suburban surroundings don't really help its cause either (even with the dramatic autumnal late-afternoon lighting).
Still, between the four B&M speed coasters that now use the V-shaped seating configuration, I think I can definitely say that this one was the first. After I've ridden the other two in Spain and Carolina, I might even be willing to consider it the best.
Behemoth was also undoubtedly the first coaster that Ontarians could really be proud of. Yes, that shade was directed at you, Buster.
Canada has had a great many accomplishments throughout its history.
The Mighty Canadian Minebuster is not one of them.
Yes, I'm aware that the Minebuster was originally built by Americans, but the horrid re-profiling efforts and utter lack of proper maintenance are at a degree far beyond anything found stateside. Most of the series of bunny hops that make out the majority of the layout have seemingly been combined and flattened out, but this is actually an illusion; the reprofiling of the layout actually involved the addition of hundreds if not thousands of extremely tiny bunny hops that help make it a real tooth-knocking experience.
If it weren't for its sister woodie across the park, I'd very seriously rate the Mighty Canadian Minebuster as the worst wooden roller coaster I've ever been on. I often find such criticism about older rides overblown, but Minebuster was of such an abysmally poor quality that I'm convinced the only reason we don't hear more negative things about it is because most of the local fanbase is too polite to criticize it in public.
All of the coasters in this shot were at one point considered the park's big starring attraction.
When Backlot Stunt Coaster opened in 2005 as the Italian Job Stunt Track, it was widely seen as a major milestone for Canada's Wonderland, the best coaster at the park in the last 14 years.
When copies of this exact same coaster opened at Kings Island and Kings Dominion, it was largely seen as a unique if middling family coaster for their respective parks.
Of course now you have Behemoth dropped right in the middle of the layout, meaning you spend as much time dodging blue supports as you do police cars and street signs. This initial ascending helix after the launch still triggers a light greyout whenever I ride it (a sensation that was courtesy of my soon-to-be boss.)
With many of the special effects removed either due to IP scrubbing or simple neglect, Backlot Stunt Coaster now takes it's place squarely in the middle of Canada's Wonderland's coaster collection. Which, with its newer, Cedar Fair-ified neighbors, is perhaps for the best.
Jeremy,
Good to see you update the website; I enjoyed reading your work long before meeting your at GCI’s FREDx all those years ago.
As for the random owl sculpture in the roof of Behemoth’s station, I think that it is intended to scare away wildlife from trying to roost in the building; I have seen these non-lethal deterrents for sale at outdoor stores. If you must quote me on this, please include my uncertainty.
Hope things are well with you.
Respectfully,
Ethan T. Benedict, BSME, EIT
P.S: Do you know if Thinkwell is looking to hire engineers in a plausible future?
Hey Ethan, good to hear from you again! Your theory about the owl makes perfect sense, though I have to wonder why it was only in use at Behemoth.
Things are going as well as can be expected for me, I hope you’re making it through these times okay.
Unfortunately Thinkwell had to reduce its staff not so long ago, and as you can imagine I can’t expect many new job opportunities coming along in the foreseeable future. However, I’m optimistic it will soon be a good time to be on the lookout for less traditional or start-up companies especially as the industry starts to return and there’s lots of new stuff forming to re-fill the voids created.