During 1969 John Allen received a request from a park that had long been a friend of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, Cincinnati’s Coney Island.  The park had showcased many Schmeck coasters including the Clipper, the Wildcat and the Shooting Star.  According to historian Charles J. Jacques, Jr., Ralph G. Wachs, Coney Island’s president, wrote Allen in April of 1969 that he had “no intentions” of hiring anyone else but Allen for the job of building a new coaster at the proposed King’s Island park north of Cincinnati.  John Allen suggested a racing coaster with an out & back profile and four train capacity.  He saw the design of his Racer not as a completely original design, but rather as an extension of Schmeck’s 1937’s Shooting Star.  Coney Island closed on September 6, 1971 and many Cincinnatians felt lost as the park thousands grew up with was gone forever.  As time progressed Allen tried to convince Wachs that a racing concept was not what the park wanted, but Wachs insisted that it was a great concept and Allen relented.  Jimmy Martz, one of Allen’s most trusted supervisors, was sent to Kings Island to ensure that the ride was completed to Allen’s specifications.  Working with him was James Figley, a man who later was the construction supervisor on the racing and junior coasters Allen designed for Kings Dominion.[1] 

Guests that attended Kings Island’s opening on April 26, 1972 were unaware they were getting the first glimpses of the roller coaster that would change the way Americans thought about amusement parks.  Many visitors were awestruck as they saw the Racer for the first time.  Set against a lush, green Ohio backdrop area was a glistening white structure that was almost painfully bright.  The Racer stood 85-feet high, had four trains (two red and two blue) and was a combination of art and architecture few had seen before.  The coaster stood in the middle of Kings Island’s Coney Mall section, a part of the park that paid homage to the lost riverside playland.  The coaster’s passengers screamed with delight as the comfortable three-bench train climbed into the spring sky.  Allen had lain before them two identical tracks that featured a combination of hill sizes, independent turn-arounds and an airtime-filled return to the station.  The coaster was exactly what America craved and sated them better than anyone had imagined.  Author Gary Kyriazi said that part of Kings Island’s success came from the fact that it opened with a major wooden roller coaster.  No major amusement park had the guts to debut with a coaster and he argued that this was a watershed for businessmen’s perception of the coaster.  After the Racer wooden roller coasters were seen as something the whole family could do.[2]  Although the coasters during this period were not the “white knucklers” from the 1920’s Allen’s gave his coasters enough airtime for even the most seasoned fan to be satisfied. 

Kings Island also debuted a small wooden roller coaster called the Scooby Doo on opening day.  The coaster was a mirror image of the three junior coasters built in 1955 and utilized P.T.C. junior trains with flanged wheels.  The coaster was an instant success with the kids and rounded out the park’s wonderful children’s area, which also showcased classic kiddie rides like a William F. Mangel’s Kiddie-whip and a Traver junior Turtle.  The coaster was re-christened the Beastie two years after the park’s mammoth wooden terrain coaster, The Beast, opened in 1978.  It has sadly received bits of theme park mentality through the years as a trim brake & seatbelts were added and the ride’s last bunny hop was removed.[3]  Although the coaster is still enjoyable it is sad that a park’s maintenance crew feels the need to butcher such a unique coaster for a theme park.

The Racer has undergone its share of renovations through the years, too.  On May 28, 1982 the park pulled a “one-eighty” for the Racer’s tenth birthday.  They turned one side of the coaster around and the Racer was the first full-circuit coaster to run backwards.  Sadly over time Allen’s coaster has lost the “punch” it once had.  One thing that slows the ride was a short chain lift added to the fourth hill (where the trains went their separate directions).  This was added because of problems with the coaster valleying.  Brakes were added to the turn-around and in 1996 the last bunny hop was removed.  Some reports said it was because of a need to lengthen the brake run while others said it was to accommodate the entrance for that year’s coaster Outer Limits: Flight of Fear.  Like many of Allen’s coasters the Racer now uses individual-locking lapbars and the “Chevron V” on the front of the train is gone, but one can still see them on the subsequent cars. 

John Allen’s Racer was more successful than he ever imagined.  With time the coaster was on television shows, photographed for magazines and talked about non-stop by the many who saw and rode this magnificent coaster.  The Racer was that singular spark that somehow captured people nationwide.  The coaster’s beauty and simplicity struck a chord with Americans in a way no coaster from the previous twenty years had.  Kings Island’s success, anchored heavily in the Racer, was so great that financial backers talked about growth possibilities like the construction of Kings Dominion only a few months after the gates closed on the park’s first season.  Investors also flirted with buying Cedar Point amusement park in order to control Ohio’s two largest amusement areas.[4]  The Racer also started the coaster enthusiast movement as Robert Cartmell, in his 1974 New York Times article, “The Quest for the Ultimate Roller Coaster” and Gary Kyriazi’s 1976 book The Great American Amusement Parks: A Pictorial History built upon the coaster frenzy that enveloped the nation.  Groups like the American Coaster Enthusiasts were formed later in the decade but the group’s roots lie in the Racer’s bents and footers.[5]

Palisades Park, one of the East Coast’s amusement park institutions, sadly closed its doors in 1971 while Allen was working on the Racer.  Although the faded memories were built upon by condominiums, many felt that the park would be rebuilt at a new location and operate within a few short years.  Plans were made as the Amusement Corporation of America hired Recreational Concepts to design the new Palisades Park.  John Allen was to design his last roller coaster at the park’s new location in Mount Olive, New Jersey.  Sadly, the deal fell through and all the citizens of New York and New Jersey were left with was a crumbled heap of dreams high on the cliffs across from Manhattan.[6]    

1971 also saw a changing of the guard at Philadelphia Toboggan Company.  A man who worked with John Allen since 1959, Sam High, succeeded Allen as president.[7]  Allen had long-talked about retiring from the coaster business, but a complete break from the industry was not something he relished.  Staying on as a designer left him time to relax, something he had not done for the many years he worked at P.T.C.  In a letter to Ralph Wachs Allen said, “My retirement from the Coaster business has in it, more fact than fiction, simply because I am reaching an age where climbing up and down ‘them there hills’ gets me in the legs.”[8]

In 1973 another of Allen’s visually stunning masterpieces was built, The Great American Scream Machine (GASM) at Six Flags over Georgia.  The Six Flags chain was impressed by the Racer’s rapport with guests of all ages.  They contacted Allen and asked for an out & back coaster that was both visually enchanting and physically thrilling.  However, not everyone felt the coaster fit a theme park.  Some people within the park’s corporate structure felt the coaster cheapened the clean-cut theme park image and that the coaster would lose its popularity after a few years.[9]  The coaster, built on a beautiful lakeside location, quickly became one of the most photographed attractions in the park and Six Flags over Georgia’s unofficial icon.  It was a dogleg out & back design that topped out at 109 feet with an 89-foot drop.  Allen liked the coaster and said, “The Great American Scream Machine, built in Atlanta, Georgia, is one of the highest, at that time, that I had designed.  This is a very fast ride, very high drops and comes into the brakes on a 45-foot radius curve which really ends up the ride with a lot of screams.”  The coaster’s turns were textbook Allen.  They had little banking and provided unusual laterals, but Allen never considered his turns one of the key ingredients to a good coaster.  After the problems with the original Mister Twister Allen remarked “curves don’t do anything for people.”[10]  Gary Kyriazi pointed out that Allen’s turns were merely ways for his coasters to change direction and were never something Allen considered an integral, thrilling part of coaster design.[11] 

The coaster opened with three-bench four-train cars.  Although it now has seat dividers and seatbelts (the latter added in 1992), the coaster thankfully still runs with single-locking lapbars.[12]  Bill Cobb worked as the coaster’s structural engineer and Don Rosser designed the station’s layout.  The team later worked with Allen on his 1976 coaster, the Screamin’ Eagle.  To celebrate the coaster’s tenth birthday the park turned the trains around and the coaster thrilled its riders in a new way.[13]  The Great American Scream Machine is one of the best-maintained wooden coasters in the Six Flags chain and one that has thankfully not been reprofiled or badly maintained like so many others.  The coaster gives a ride that showcases the large-scale way Allen conceived his “mega coasters.”  With its colorful station, unique placement and beautiful tracer lights silhouetting the coaster at night, the Great American Scream Machine is a work of art that thrills.

Taft was obviously happy with the Racer’s popularity & throughput and wanted a ride that duplicated these attributes.  John Allen sold them the southern-themed Rebel Yell for Kings Dominion.  The coaster was almost identical to its cousin at Kings Island, but Allen still had some tricks up his sleeves for Rebel Yell riders.   Allen altered the turn-around so that it gave different experience (and some say more vicious airtime).  Instead of splitting after the ride’s fourth hill the trains stayed next to each other until they reached the turn around.  This helped the coaster fit along the park’s lake and ensured that its footprint towards the back of the ride was narrower than the Racer.  The resulting airtime hills off the turn around and through the return trip were some of Allen’s best-sustained punches and left riders out of their seats.  Like Kings Island, the park also opened with an Allen-designed junior wooden coaster, Scooby Doo (now Scooby Doo’s Ghoster Coaster) that was 35 feet tall and 1,385 feet long.[14] 

The park and the coasters opened on May 3, 1975 and the Rebel Yell, like its older brother, was a hit with the media.  This culminated in the coaster’s extensive screen time in the 1977 film “Rollercoaster” that premiered on June 10.  Captivated audiences watched in a mixture of horror & glee as George Segal enjoyed the coaster and director James Goldstone captured the its beautiful lines with an illegal shot from a helicopter that hovered feet above the coaster.[15]  Only four days before the film opened a marathon that helped advertise the movie began on Kings Dominion’s Rebel Yell.  It was here that Richard Munch, Paul Greenwald and Roy Brashears met and a few months later formed A.C.E.[16]

John Allen was a bit apprehensive designing the coaster that turned out to be his last.  He said, “With the one-price policy, six-month-old kids get on the rides, and when people pay one price, they want to ride everything.  That means you’re riding a wide range of ages.  And in many cases, like in St. Louis, they haven’t ridden a coaster in a long time.  So you have to be careful.”  For his 1976 Screamin’ Eagle roller coaster at Six Flags over Mid-America (now Six Flags St. Louis) Allen utilized many tricks from previous coasters.  The general layout was related to his 1968 Shooting Star, however it was larger and longer.  The Guinness Book of World Records reported that the new coaster was the longest, tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world when it opened.[17]  The coaster’s white structure and red track stood out against the park’s surrounding greenery and made a dramatic impression standing at the rear of the park.  Six Flags St. Louis aficionado Jeff King called the coaster’s placement its best feature as well as the fact that it was “one of the most beautiful in existence.”[18] 

            The marketing frenzy began in the spring of 1976, as the people around St. Louis were primed for the park’s biggest event since its 1971 opening.  People talked about the huge coaster being built at the park and Six Flags had an all-out marketing blitz.  One television commercial said (as the Great American Scream Machine sped by in the background):

"It climbs,
Higher than one has ever gone before.
Climbs 110 feet,
Then the Screamin’ Eagle dives!
Plunges an incredible 62 miles per hour, swoops out of it, and dives again,
The Screamin’ Eagle.
The world has never seen a ride as long, as tall as fast as the Six Flags Screamin’ Eagle.
Come fly the Eagle, unless you’re…chicken???"[19]

Guests were awestruck as they walked to the back of the park.  An eagle with outstretched arms ushered them into the station designed by Don Rosser.  From the coaster’s entrance visitors could only see the far turns, the lift hill’s crest and the giant eagle atop of the third hill.  After waiting several hours guests boarded the five-car, three-bench train, the skid brakes were released and the Eagle rumbled towards the lift hill.  As the coaster ascended to a record-breaking height riders looked around at the 104 board-miles of lumber that made up the coaster’s structure.  After disengaging from the lift the coaster traversed a swoop curve that built up some speed but let the cars teeter at the top of the first drop before diving 86 feet to the ground below.  Here Allen again used his large-small-large hill design technique.  But, the third hill was where the ride’s power was unleashed.  This was the coaster’s largest drop at 92 feet and the huge parabolic hill gave the coaster even more energy.  After this drop it was non-stop speed back to the station.  After several low-slung hills riders hit the first 90-degree turn.  The coaster then doglegged left, over a few hills and into a 180-degree turn.  The drop off the turn led into one of Allen’s best airtime moments ever.  Instead of adding a dead straightaway he lifted the coaster about five feet, let it coast another sixty and then shot it up into the final turn.  On this element, a kind of “mini double-up” riders throughout the train received huge doses of airtime.  After the last turn the Eagle dropped twice and ducked into the brake shed, threatening to decapitate all of its riders right before the skid brakes slowed the coaster.[20]

          The Eagle has sadly gotten many unnecessary changes throughout the years.  The three-bench trains were lost in favor of two-bench trailered cars (with fin brakes) for the 1990 season.  The next year the trains were changed again because of the bad way they worked on many Six Flags coasters- especially Curtis Summer’s wicked 1990 experience, The Texas Giant.  During the 1990 season Six Flags over Mid-America claimed that the coaster reached speeds of seventy miles per hour because of the new cars.  That was quietly reduced during the 2000 season because that year the 150-foot Boss was clocked at 66.5 m.p.h. and it became unreasonable to think that the Eagle, with a drop roughly fifty feet shorter than the Boss, was four m.p.h. faster.  In 1994 the coaster ran backwards and the three turns were banked, a move that reduced what little laterals the train had.  Probably the most unforgivable alteration was the removal of the coaster’s most unique element, the double up before the last turn.  Today it is simply a straight, boring piece of track, the exact thing Allen worked to eliminate in this design.  For the 2001 season the Eagle’s heads were re-affixed to the front of the cars, but it is running worse than ever.  The speed is still there and this coaster wants to deliver.  But it receives little-to-no graphite and the track work has become so shoddy that the coaster only runs as a former shell of itself.[21]

            John Allen received several requests to build subsequent coasters after the Eagle, but he bowed out of the design business.  Marriott’s Great America contacted him for the construction of their American Eagle, but he did not want to attempt it.[22]  The coaster was later designed by Curtis Summers (who replicated Allen’s racers in Thunder Road for the 1976 season), James Figley and Leonard Wright for Intamin A.G.[23]  After his retirement Allen consulted with parks on maintenance and design issues.  His last design work was the “launch/brake system” for Kings Island’s 1979 Charlie Dinn coaster, The Beast.  On August 17, 1979 John Allen passed away.  His death left the industry without a man who was the bridge between the coaster’s first and second golden ages.  Dr. Robert Cartmell put it best.  He said simply, “I revered the man.”[24]

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Adam Sandy, Copyright 2001.