swampfox43

I was at Carowinds yesterday and the wait for FURY was just over 15 minutes. I had a friends visiting from Atlanta and Australia. The Aussie has been traveling the USA over the past 2 weeks gathering information on a documentary to be released on Australian TV in a few months. He will post it on You Tube he said. We all loved FURY (I've personally ridden 9 times now) and my guests says it has the best first drop of any coaster they had ever ridden, and they have ridden many all over the globe. I have another Australian friend coming in May or June just to ride FURY. Yes, the hype has reached global proportions. On media day there were TV crews from China there. I stood by as they were doing their commentary on the bridge that FURY dives under. I couldn't understand anything they were saying obviously except when they attempted to say "FOOWY".

Aerial drone video I took Jan 17 during construction tour.

One of many aerial photos I took Sunday, Dec 14 of FURY construction.

Just confirming the "rumor". Building permit found here for new Sling Shot ride.

Looks like Carowinds will not only be adding a world class coaster in 2015, but also a Sling Shot ride like this one at Cedar Point according to this article today in the CBJ. This has been rumored for a while but this article practically confirms it. Wow! 2015 is shaping up to be pretty exciting at Carowinds.

There are now 2 HD webcams showing construction of the new coaster and the new entrance: https://www.carowinds.com/online-fun/webcams

Millennium Force is a great coaster. Ridden it many times. Intamin coasters have a whole different feel than B&M coasters. MF may always be your favorite regardless of stats. But until F325 opens, no one can honestly say because this will be a one-of-a-kind ride unlike any other.

Let's not forget an 81º drop and 6602 feet of track. That's nearly 1300 feet more track than Intimidator and 7º steeper than Intimidators.. Also, the days of big pamphlet press kits are numbered. Take a look at the Fury 325 press kit. It's a flash drive molded to fit snuggly into the side of the hornet. All the photos and videos shown in todays presentation and even some B-rolls that were not part of the presentation are on there. Nice to be able to put a press kit in your pocket for a change...They also gave away green glasses with honeycombed lenses. They did open Intimidator for us junkies to get our thrills. All I could imagine when we crested the top was "wow, Fury 325 will be 100 feet taller than this!!!"... Another image from the flash drive.

I'll be at the media event tomorrow. Although much of this rides stats have been leaked, it will finally be nice to make it official and hope for a few surprises.

I took this one of the tear down last Saturday (March 22) from my radio controlled quadcopter. They've come a long way since then.

Here's a decent 1 hour time lapse showing uptown Charlotte/

My favorite new past time is taking my quadcopter up several hundred feet and taking pictures and video with the attached camera. Here is one I took from Freedom Park in early March.

They've announced the new stuff for 2014 already. New waterslides in the waterpark. Also, new paint jobs on some of the coasters. 2015 will be the big year. A 300+ ft coaster. Should be a nice addition to the parks skyline.

I took my flying camera to the skies on this cold Christmas day. Couldn't resist getting some aerial views of Carowinds. Take a look!

Also, Rack Room Shoes at PRSC is closing. The signs were posted Dec 23. Lot's of stores are moving out. I am sure in part because of the astronomical rate increase. Blackhawk signed a 10 year lease 2 years ago but I doubt they will be moving even with the lease rate increase Edens & Avant has swept across the shopping center. Kinda sad to see some of the other little, independent stores leaving though. When Porter Byron opened PRSC, he wanted it to be a place for the little, independent guy to succeed. Yes, times have changed but it's still sad to see so many of them leaving.