Roller Coaster

There's a new space-age roller coaster that turns the world upside down for riders at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township N.J. and it's as exciting as a parachute jump. That was my impression anyway, as one of the lucky first to try the thrill ride Shockwave when it made its debut this season. Great Adventure, which has a penchant for providing the ultimate in roller- coaster kicks, has outdone itself. The ride aboard this electric-blue shocker is a two-minute, 55-mile-per- hour chase across nearly a half-mile of open sky, the kicker being that there are no seats aboard Shockwave: Riders go from start to finish on their own two feet.

America is having a roller-coaster renaissance, with amusement parks all over the country spending millions of dollars on rides designed to attract more screamers than ever before. Two of the new thrill titans are competing for the title of world's tallest and fastest roller coaster. The contenders - both of which opened to the public this spring - are the Great American Scream Machine at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, N.J., and the Magnum XL-200 at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio.

To some, the abandoned wooden roller coaster on the edge of Lakemont Park is a crumbling remnant of pre-World War I Americana, standing mostly because no one could afford to knock it down. To others, the Leap the Dips is a turn-of-the-century treasure - the world's oldest roller coaster, the holy grail of greased rails, a shrine that draws pilgrims from as far away as France, Belgium and Turkey to this weathered railroad town about 80 miles east of Pittsburgh. Last summer, five dozen English roller-coaster enthusiasts crossed the Atlantic to gaze upon its failing tracks and frayed cupola.

Kingda Ka, the world's tallest, fastest roller coaster, could be running again by the end of the month, a spokeswoman for Six Flags Great Adventure said. "Things are going very well," said Kristin Siebeneicher, public-relations manager for the Jackson Township, N.J., park. "Our maintenance team is working hand in hand with the ride manufacturer and the State of New Jersey to complete the launch track area. " The roller coaster, which opened May 19, has been shut down since it malfunctioned during a routine test June 8. A liner in the trough of the launch track became dislodged and damaged other parts.

If you handed Robert F. Gaynor a microphone at a gathering, your chances of getting it back were slim. Bob, as he was best known, was a ham if there ever was one. Give him an audience and he was in his element. He was the life-of-the-party kind of guy who could croon a '50s ballad at a karaoke, make a speech, tell jokes, whatever the situation called for. He was also an actor who was proud of his role as an extra in the popular 2006 film "Invincible," and acted in numerous plays for a theater group in South Jersey.

Paul Barteld isn't sure whether his 7-year-old son will ever ride a roller coaster again. Michael Barteld, of Pine Hill, was aboard the Wild Wonder coaster on Ocean City's boardwalk on Aug. 28 when the car ahead malfunctioned, plummeted backward 40 feet, tore around a sharp corner, and slammed into his car. A mother and daughter, Kimberly Bailey, 39, and Jessica Bailey, 8, of Pomona, N.Y., were thrown from the crashing car and killed. "It was very scary for him," said Paul Barteld, whose son was cut and bruised.

Operator error caused a Chester teen-ager to fall to her death from a Great Adventure roller-coaster last month, according to a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Labor. An operator erred in locking padded restraint bars on the Lightnin' Loops ride before the victim could get under them, Joe Palazzone, the department's chief investigator, said yesterday. The worst penalty the department can impose on Great Adventure is a fine ranging from $25 to $500, and the department can do nothing to the worker, Palazzone said.

Six Flags Great Adventure amusement park, where last month a young Chester woman fell to her death from a roller coaster, does not adhere to a policy that is common among other parks: checking by hand that safety restraints are secure on all roller coaster riders. Of 10 major American amusement parks surveyed by The Inquirer last week, only two in addition to Great Adventure said they do not require their employees to hand-check all roller coaster safety bars or harnesses. They are Hershey Park in Hershey and Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif.

Think of the most exciting thing you've ever done. Your pulse quickens. Your heart palpitates. A tingling heat spreads across the back of your neck. And there's an intangible feeling in your gut - like you're on the edge of something, teetering between supreme delight and extreme danger. Now, climb into a roller coaster car. Strap on the lap harness, giggle nervously and lean back into the seat. The car lurches forward with a jerk and starts climbing into the sky. The chain-drive clink-clink-clinks, inexorably dragging the coaster's passengers to the top. Clink-clink-clink.

First there was the jolt, recalled Genevieve White, a passenger aboard the wrecked Amtrak Colonial. "It was the most frightening thing that could possibly happen," the Mount Airy woman said last night. "It was like being on a roller coaster going sideways. I said, 'Oh, my God, we're going in the river.' I was positive I was going to a fiery grave in the water. " The crash was equally scary from outside the confines of the 12-car train. Michele Exter, who was hanging laundry in her back yard when disaster struck about 40 yards away, remembers "a sound like the crunch of metal.

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. - It built an early reputation as a boardwalk thrill ride, but will be remembered as a symbol: the roller coaster that dropped into the Atlantic Ocean. On Tuesday, as people watched from the decks of a pizza joint and a shuttered tattoo parlor, a soaring crane on a barge began unceremoniously taking apart the mangled Jet Star, still partially submerged where it has sat since Hurricane Sandy. And in what seemed like no time at all, not long after Prince Harry left, the image that has defined the impact of Sandy at the Jersey Shore began to disappear, twisted track by twisted track, like a beach eroding before your eyes.

Update: Prince Harry has ended his short visit to the Shore with Gov. Christie and flown to New York for the next stop on his tour. During his visit, the prince walked on the Seaside Heights Boardwalk with the governor, who presented the royal guest with one of his trademark fleece jackets. SEASIDE HEIGHTS - Prince Harry, as it turns out, will be among the final tourists to take in the sobering sight of the Jet Star roller coaster in the Atlantic Ocean that has defined Hurricane Sandy on the Jersey Shore.

In another turn toward normalcy, amusement rides will start spinning this weekend at some parks and piers along the Sandy-battered Jersey Shore even as work continues to repair damage to buildings, boardwalks, and other attractions. The Keansburg Amusement Park, which the storm left under up to six feet of water, was to open Saturday, though not all rides will be ready to operate and its Wildcat roller coaster is gone. Co-owner Hank Gehlhaus said the park suffered millions of dollars in damage, very little of it covered by insurance, but he told the Asbury Park Press, "We're not going anywhere.

BOSTON - Mitt Romney is back, if only briefly. The former Republican presidential candidate is reemerging after nearly four months in seclusion at his Southern California home. Former aides describe his burst of activity this month - a national broadcast interview, a speech at a gathering of conservatives - as a thank-you tour of sorts designed to close out a lengthy political career. His party isn't exactly clamoring for his return. In his first public comments in months, Romney used a Fox News interview to criticize President Obama's leadership.

At the time, it seemed like a crazy thing to say. In the space of just over a year, Internet Capital Group chief executive Walter Buckley had watched his company become a spectacular success - at its peak in 2000, it was worth more than $50 billion - only to fall as quickly as it had risen, the embodiment of the dot-com boom and bust. But there was Buckley in November 2000, his innate optimism thriving despite his company's decline. "We have never been more confident of what we're building," Buckley told The Inquirer.

SUMMER SEEMED so far away last month at the Jersey Shore, with ice inching across back bays and winds whipping sand across empty beaches. In the Shore towns hit hardest by Superstorm Sandy, mostly in Central Jersey, the sounds of bulldozers and circular saws echoed in the frozen landscape. But in resorts spared from Sandy's worst, particularly in Cape May County, real-estate agents say their phones are burning up with calls from people like Norman Noe looking for undamaged summer rentals.

An Ocean County man on Tuesday apparently climbed the Seaside Heights roller coaster that was swept into the ocean by Hurricane Sandy and planted an American flag at its peak. Authorities said they received a report about 9 a.m. of someone on the Jet Star, which has been partially submerged since Sandy swept it off the Funtown amusement pier in late October. The man surrendered to New Jersey state police, who brought him to shore, said Lt. Stephen Jones, a State Police spokesman.

AFTER HURRICANE Sandy hurled the Jet Star roller coaster off Seaside Heights' boardwalk and left it teetering in the surf, some worried it might draw suicide-seekers, vandals or hurricane-memento hunters, while the town mayor briefly championed it as a potential tourist attraction. But Chris Angulo saw the ruined ride as the perfect place to announce his love for America. Tuesday morning, he kayaked out to it, climbed to the top and erected an American flag. Police divers and other emergency workers, at first unsure of his intentions, splashed through the frigid waves in boats to rescue him. But Angulo, 38, a professional tree climber, clambered down without help and was led, handcuffed, through the surf to jail.