"The Voyage" #1 in the 2007 Wooden Roller Coaster Poll

    Holiday World's newest wooden roller coaster edged El Toro to claim the top spot for the second straight year.   
It was very close at the top as The Voyage won the mutual rider comparison with El Toro by a slim 64 to 58 margin.
    
    Dollywood's Thunderhead again showed well at #3.  Toverland's new for 2007 coaster, Troy, impressed the 100 
who have ridden it enough to vote it #4 in the world.  Two time winner Balder easily won the mutual rider comparison
with #3 Thunderhead, but losses to fellow European rides Troy and Thunderbird dropped it to #5.

    Boulder Dash squeaked by Phoenix 66 to 64 among mutual riders to claim 6th.  Tremors and Hades remained
in the top 10, at #'s 8 and 9 respectively.  Thunderbird rounds out this year's top 10, climbing from #38 in 2007 (the 
2006 ranking was based on only 8 Thunderbird riders, whereas 26 of them took the poll in 2007). 

    2007's other new wooden roller coasters also did very well, Valleyfair!'s Renegade debuted at #19 and Kemah
Boardwalk's Boardwalk Bullet  was placed 21st in the World by the voters.  The newly relocated rides, Starliner at
Cypress Gardens and Meteor at Little A-Merrick-a were placed 88th and 133rd respectively.  

   Special thanks to the 764 people who took the time to participate in the 2007 poll (all 764 ballots) and more than 
two dozen great roller coaster sites that linked to the poll.




     Oldies, But Goodies: Among the great coasters in this year's top 30 are four that have been thrilling 
riders since before the Kennedy Administration:  Phoenix (1947) ,  Coaster (1958) ,  Comet (1947),  
Grand National (1935).   

FACTOID: Construction dates of the top 30: (1935-1958)=4, (1959-1994)=0, (1995-2007)=26

    Within the top 25, the mutual rider tiebreaker was used four times to separate coasters that had
the same number of blemishes (losses + (ties/2)) on their record....and there is one pair
of coasters for which the coaster with the marginally better winning percentage (due to more valid
comparisons against much lower rated coasters) is the lower ranked one of the pair.

    Holiday World is again the park with the top wooden coaster duo (#1 The Voyage, #13 Raven), 
and trio (including #31 The Legend).

    At the other end of the poll, California's Grizzly made it 13 straight years in dead last. 

    The following chart shows the mutual rider comparisons for the top 13 coasters (including 
"Favorite Steel").  Preferences are listed for the people who rode each pair of coasters.  The chart should
be read from left to right along the line for each of the top coasters listed at the left.  For instance, it can 
be seen that The Voyage was preferred over El Toro, with 64 mutual riders preferring The Voyage and
58 preferring El Toro.




    See the link to the full 180x180 mutual rider comparison spreadsheet below.

    The "Favorite Steel" coaster would have caused a 3-way tie for first if it were included 
in the final results, losing only the mutual rider comparison to El Toro 73 to 65. 

    Steel coaster fans: Keep an eye out for the 2007 Internet Steel Roller Coaster Poll, coming soon to BestRollerCoasterPoll.com