The Destruction of Grizzly
Archive - Northern ExposureAuthor: Luke Meeker
A bright glare bounces off of Drop Zone and shines on the freshly greased anti-rollback on Grizzly’s first hill. The trains are completing their circuit (barely), with the occasional need of a push on the first turnaround. The wind blows lightly through the southern yellow pine of Grizzly’s support structure. Well… we know it’s pine. We’re not sure if it’s yellow pine or if it just turned yellow because so many enthusiasts have defecated it with urine in mid-ride jaunts on the Barney Oldfield Raceway. Demon cycles through its butter smooth corkscrews, contrasting to the vertebrae-shattering-needlessly-banked-designed-by-a-crackhead-course of The Grizzly. The scene is set for what will be the first of many attempts to destroy that bastard of a roller coaster.
Today we, the staff of westcoaster.net, have plotted the grandest and most-unlikely-to-be-successful method of destroying The Grizzly. We have convinced Paul Rueben to prove to us that The Grizzly is indeed his ‘#1 coaster’ by riding it over and over again. By combining the mystical aura of hate that surrounds Paul Rueben and multiple other aspects of our plan, the Grizzly will tumble to the ground with the added bonus of having Paul Rueben in the midst of the burning rubble. To reach this point of success and ecstasy, we must complete all five aspects of Project Codename: Salvation. The five aspects of the plan are listed below with their respectful percentages of necessity to make the plan effective:
Aspect #1: Paul Rueben riding The Grizzly. In all honesty, it doesn’t need to be Paul Rueben, it could probably be any person who dangerously crosses the load bearing line of your average elevator. But, Paul Rueben is, after all, the ultimate roller coaster whore, and taking him down along with the-bastard-that-is The Grizzly is ultimately an added bonus that can be gained with no more than the promise of an all you can eat buffet and a Discovery Channel camera for him to whore himself out to. The point is that we need a heavy load to stress the track so that the force of a mere kick from Dan will send The Grizzly crashing to the ground. Now, plugging this into accurate Physics… we get…
Force (Newtons) = Mass x Acceleration
Mass (kg) = Mass of Paul Rueben + Mass of Grizzly Train + Mass of amount eaten by Paul Ruben at said All-You-Can-Eat Buffet + Mass of Discovery Channel On-Ride Camera
Mass (kg) = 159 kg + 2727.27 kg + 8 kg + 31.81 kg = 2926.08 kg
Acceleration (meters/second squared) = 2.1 (if they actually greased the axles)
Force (Newtons) = 2926.08 x 2.1 = 6144.76 Newtons
After solving for the force at top speed, we find that the only crucial points for Dan to kick are the bottom of the first drop and after the ‘bunny’ hill. This, however, is without factoring in the mystical aura of hate that surrounds Paul Rueben. Plugging that into the proper equation… we get…
Location (along track in meters) = |(Force x Mystical Aura of Hate factor [scale of 1-8]) / (Number of B&M coasters in park – Number of Vekoma coasters in park +1)|
Location (along track in meters) = |(6144.76 Newtons x 8 MAHF) / (2 B&M – 2 Vekoma + 1)| = ANYWHERE!
By taking the absolute value of the quantity of the quantity of force and mystical aura of hate factor divided by the quantity of the number of B&M coasters in the park less the amount of Vekoma coasters in park, we find that Dan need only kick the coaster anywhere he damn well pleases while Matt cheers him on and Jim and I laugh approvingly. Heck, at this rate, he could flick it anywhere and it would fall over. The combination of a slight breeze and Paul Rueben would possibly kill it. I could fart on it, and if Paul Rueben was riding, it would flip over and burst into flames. Anyways, you get the point, hence Paul Rueben’s necessity to effectiveness percentage of 42.34.
Aspect #2: Kicking it. Like I said, we don’t have to kick it, we just have to expel some kind of force on it besides that of the train to kill it. I covered this above, and while the force not need be huge, it is still necessary to the plan; hence a necessity to effectiveness percentage of 35.42
Aspect #3: Pre-game funnel cake. It is most crucial that the westcoaster.net crew fuel up before the destruction of this pile of scrap wood by scarfing massive funnel cakes provided by Great America. Fruit topping, whipped cream, and soft serve combine on top of these funnel cakes to make a necessity to effectiveness percentage of 8.69.
Aspect #4: Fart jokes. Well, these aren’t really all that important, they are just always involved in westcoaster.net group outings anyways. So not having them would probably throw multiple crew members off of their rockers and cause them to perhaps miss their mark and cause Project Codename: Salvation to fail. Fart joke necessity to effectiveness percentage is 2.8.
Aspect #5: Corny high fives at completion of plan. This is most crucial. One of the most important parts of this plan is to not only destroy The Grizzly and Paul Rueben, but to look damn good doing it. Multiple corny high fives and other exclamations of radness or excitement bring the plan to a close with a percentage of necessity to effectiveness of 10.75.
Assuming all aspects of Project Codename: Salvation are right on the money, and that Josh from ACN and Andrew are there to film it, and that we have other westcoaster.net crewage cheering us on, I predict that The Grizzly will fall. And the masses will rejoice in the destruction and dance as the ash of southern yellow pine falls hesitantly to the ground while Paul Rueben’s last words are muttered under the wreckage of a Grizzly car… “This is no longer my number one coaster… where is my all you can eat buffet… I was promised a… buffet…”