I thought it was interesting to look at this again and see the genesis of the head to head ranking method for coasters, warts and all. Does anyone out there remember this inauspicious beginning? A three-way tie for first! Note the low voter turnout, only North American rides, inclusion of out and back steel rides, IT93 indicates the Inside Track rankings that year for comparison. Here it is, largely unedited: Article: 7621 of rec.roller-coaster From: fabsfan@delphi.com Newsgroups: rec.roller-coaster Subject: 'Wood' coaster Poll Results Date: Thu, 17 Mar 94 22:39:49 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 130 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: delphi.com The following are the results this year's rec.r-c North American 'Wood' Coaster Poll: Twenty people took the poll. Top 33 coasters by average score. Coasters that had fewer than 2 poll takers ride them were not included. 21 points were awarded for 1st, 19-2nd, 18-3rd, ..11-10th). poll takers RANK COASTER avg. who rode it 1. Texas Giant-SFoT, TX 18.7 3 2. Georgia Cyclone-SFoG, GA 18 4 3. Magnum XL200-Cedar Point, OH 17.0 15 4. Phoenix-Knoebel's, PA 16.3 6 5. Wild One-*Wild* World, MD 15.2 5 6. Blue Streak-Conneaut Lake, PA 14 4 7. Thunderbolt-Kennywood, PA 13.9 15 8. The Beast-King's Island, OH 12.1 13 9. Cyclone- Astroland, NY 12.0 7 10.Blue Streak-Cedar Point, OH 12.0 16 11.Mean Streak-Cedar Point, OH 11.7 16 12.Giant Dipper-Santa Cruz B&B, CA 11.4 5 13.Jack Rabbit-Kennywood, PA 10.8 15 14.Rebel Yell-King's Dominion, VA 9.3 10 15.Thunderhawk-Dorney Park, PA 9.2 6 16.Gemini-Cedar Point, OH 9.1 15 17.Ark. Twister-Magic Springs, AR 8.5 2 18.The Grizzly-King's Dominion, VA 8.3 9 19.(tie)Swamp Fox-Family Kingdom, SC 8.0 2 Yankee Cannonball-Canobie Lake, NH 8.0 4 21.Hercules-Dorney Park, PA 7.7 6 22.Comet Flyer-Whalom Park, MA 7.5 4 (tie)Le Monstre-Le Ronde,Que 7.5 2 24.Timberwolf-Worlds of Fun, MO 7.0 4 25.Screachin' Eagle-Americana, OH 6.8 5 26.Racer-Kennywood, PA 6.3 15 27.Big Dipper-Camden Park, WV 6.0 2 28.Big Dipper-Geauga Lake Park, OH 5.7 10 29.Racer-King's Island, OH 5.5 13 30.Sea *Dragon*-Wyandot Lake, OH 5.5 4 (tie) Cyclone-Williams Grove, PA 5.5 2 32.Giant Dipper-Belmont Park, CA 5.4 5 33.Thunder Run-Kentucky Kingdom, KY 5.3 3 There seems to be a lot of noise in the data past this point due to few people who have ridden a coaster or few riders rating a particular coaster in their top ten. Next time I will allow a top twenty in an attempt to address the latter problem (and I will personally be trying to ride as many as I can to help with the former problem :) ). These coasters were not included due to having less than 2 of its' riders take this poll: 0:Starliner, Outlaw, Wolverine Wildcat, Excalibur, Tree Topper, La Montana Rusa 1:Giant Coaster, High Roller, Tornado, Cannonball, Little Dippers, Zingo, Zippin Pippin,Kiddie Coaster, Roller Coasters The following table lists the number of people who prefer one coaster over another among those who have ridden both. The numbers in the table stand for the following coasters: (top 10 from above poll) 1.Tx.Giant 2.Ga.Cyc. 3.Magnum 4.Phoenix 5.Wild One 6.Blue Streak-PA 7.Tbolt-PA 8.Beast 9.Cyclone (NY) 10.Blue Streak (OH) vs. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. W-L-T 1. X 2-1 3-0 2-0 1-2 1-0 3-0 2-1 3-0 3-0 8-1 2. 1-2 X 2-1 3-0 3-1 1-0 3-1 2-1 4-0 3-0 8-1 3. 0-3 1-2 X 2-1 1-3 2-1 8-2 5-6 2-2 12-1 4-4-1 4. 0-2 0-3 1-2 X 1-2 3-0 5-1 3-0 2-1 4-0 5-4 5. 2-1 1-3 3-1 2-1 X 1-0 3-2 3-1 3-0 4-0 8-1 6. 0-1 0-1 1-2 0-3 0-1 X 2-2 1-1 1-1 1-2 0-6-3 7. 0-3 1-3 2-8 1-5 2-3 2-2 X 3-5 3-4 7-3 1-7-1 8. 1-2 1-2 6-5 0-3 1-3 1-1 5-3 X 1-2 8-3 3-5-1 9. 0-3 0-4 2-2 1-2 0-3 1-1 4-3 2-1 X 3-1 3-4-2 10.0-3 0-3 1-12 0-4 0-4 2-1 3-7 3-8 1-3 X 1-8 I find the chart above very interesting (I hope it comes across legibly). Maybe head to head overall record would be the most unbiased way to rank rollercoasters... Here are the top 20 when ranked by head to head. COASTER RECORD RANK IT93 BY AVG PTS 1. Texas Giant 18-1 1 2 (tie)Georgia Cyclone 18-1 2 12 (tie)Wild One 18-1 5 14 4.Phoenix 15-4 4 4 5.Magnum 13-4-2 3 1 (tie)Cyclone(NY) 13-4-2 9 6 7.Blue Streak(PA) 10-5-4 6 24 8.Giant Dipper(SCBB) 10-7-2 12 17 9.Yankee Cannonball 8-6-5 20 !!! 27 10.Beast 6-8-4 8 3 11.Rebel Yell 7-10-2 14 32 12.Thunderhawk 6-9-4 15 21 13.Thunderbolt(PA) 6-11-2 7 7 14.Blue streak(OH) 5-11-3 10 23 15.Mean Streak 4-13-2 11 8 16.Comet Flyer 3-13-3 22 - 17.Jack Rabbit(PA) 3-14-2 13 16 18.Hercules 3-14 21 19 19.Grizzly(VA) 3-15-1 18 10 20.Gemini 0-19 16 35 Notes: I did not include Swamp Fox or Ark Twister in the head to head rankings as they each only had 2 rider/raters which made it tough to compare them. Also, you may notice that not all coasters have a total of 19 w-l-t's that is because some pairs of coasters did not have anyone who I could tell rode both and had a preference. Gemini would have dropped further but I had to stop at some point and that was the arbitrary point I chose. If I do this again it will be after I write a C program to tally these for me, as it is I compared the coasters head-to-head by hand....ouch! Enjoy........... Mitch Hawker fabsfan@delphi.com Much later, after writing a Pascal head-to-head tabulation program for the 1994 poll, I went back and ran the 1993 ballots to see what the results would have been (Magnum, Gemini, et al were excluded). Final Results of The 1993 Internet Wooden Rollercoaster Poll -Notes: - Only 20 ballots were received. - Only North American coasters were listed on the ballot. - North American coasters not listed here had no riders take the poll. - A blank line was inserted where > .02 WinPct gap exists. RANK NAME PARK LOC Riders WinPct 1 Georgia Cyclone SFoG GA 4 76 1 0 0.9870 2 Texas Giant SFoT TX 3 75 1 0 0.9868 3 Wild One Adventure World MD 5 73 1 1 0.9800 4 Phoenix Knoebel's PA 6 71 3 2 0.9474 5 Arkansas Twister Magic Springs AR 2 64 3 6 0.9178 6 Cyclone Astroland NY 7 66 4 5 0.9133 7 Le Monstre La Ronde QU 2 63 5 5 0.8973 8 Blue Streak Conneaut Lake Park PA 4 64 6 5 0.8867 9 Cyclone Williams Grove PA 2 60 9 4 0.8493 10 Giant Dipper Santa Cruz Bch Bdwk CA 5 49 6 7 0.8468 11 Yankee Cannonball Canobie Lake Park NH 5 60 10 3 0.8425 12 Giant Coaster Arnolds Park IA 1 10 2 0 0.8333 13 Thunderbolt Kennywood PA 16 53 13 4 0.7857 14 Thunderhawk Dorney Park PA 6 34 7 8 0.7755 15 Rebel Yell Kings Dominion VA 11 45 12 8 0.7538 16 The Beast Kings Island OH 13 47 15 4 0.7424 17 Swamp Fox Family Kingdom SC 3 26 12 1 0.6795 18 Jack Rabbit Kennywood PA 15 42 18 7 0.6791 19 Blue Streak Cedar Point OH 17 40 18 4 0.6774 20 Twister Elitch Gardens CO 3 30 15 3 0.6563 21 Comet Flyer Whalom Park MA 5 29 15 3 0.6489 22 The Grizzly Kings Dominion VA 11 38 20 4 0.6452 23 Timberwolf Worlds of Fun MO 4 29 15 6 0.6400 24 Giant Dipper Belmont Park CA 5 31 18 2 0.6275 25 Mean Streak Cedar Point OH 15 34 21 2 0.6140 26 Tornado Stricker's Grove OH 1 7 5 0 0.5833 High Roller Valleyfair! MN 1 7 5 0 0.5833 28 Big Dipper Camden Park WV 3 22 16 1 0.5769 29 Screachin' Eagle Americana OH 6 28 21 2 0.5686 30 Thunder Run Kentucky Kingdom KY 3 17 18 2 0.4865 31 Big Dipper Geauga Lake OH 11 22 25 2 0.4694 32 Dragon Coaster Playland NY 8 20 30 1 0.4020 33 Hercules Dorney Park PA 6 11 17 0 0.3929 34 Racer Kennywood PA 15 20 33 3 0.3839 35 Riverside Cyclone Riverside MA 5 11 25 2 0.3158 36 Racer Kings Island OH 13 10 33 1 0.2386 37 Jack Rabbit Clementon Lake NJ 3 4 15 0 0.2105 38 Sea Dragon Wyandot Lake OH 4 5 22 1 0.1964 39 M.Can.Mine Buster Canada's Wonderland ON 5 4 23 1 0.1607 40 Screamin' Eagle SFMA MO 5 4 28 2 0.1471 41 Rolling Thunder SFGAd NJ 7 3 27 1 0.1129 42 Sky Princess Dutch Wonderland PA 4 2 20 1 0.1087 43 Wilde Beast Canada's Wonderland ON 5 3 25 0 0.1071 44 Comet Hersheypark PA 9 2 28 3 0.1061 45 Grt Am Scrm Mach SFoG GA 7 2 30 1 0.0758 46 Texas Cyclone SF Astroworld TX 4 1 25 0 0.0385 Ghoster Coaster Canada's Wonderland ON 4 1 25 0 0.0385 48 Beastie Kings Island OH 7 0 33 2 0.0286 The coasters listed below this point were not ranked ahead of any other by anyone who took the poll and are listed in no particular order. Note that most had few rider/raters. 49 Raging Wolf Bobs Geauga Lake OH 5 0 30 0 0.0000 Kiddie Coaster Playland NY 2 0 17 0 0.0000 Jack Rabbit Seabreeze NY 2 0 19 0 0.0000 Predator Darien Lake NY 4 0 26 0 0.0000 Golden Nugget Mine Conko's Party Pier NJ 3 0 20 0 0.0000 Wildcat Frontier City OK 2 0 14 0 0.0000 Zingo Bell's OK 1 0 10 0 0.0000 Thunder Road Carowinds NC 3 0 25 0 0.0000 Scooby Doo Carowinds NC 3 0 25 0 0.0000 Skyliner Lakemont PA 4 0 21 0 0.0000 Comet Waldameer PA 3 0 18 0 0.0000 Thunderbolt Riverside MA 5 0 28 0 0.0000 Roller Coaster Joyland KS 1 0 10 0 0.0000 Rollo Coaster Idlewild PA 4 0 20 0 0.0000 Little Dipper Kiddieland IL 1 0 10 0 0.0000 Little Dipper Hillcrest IL 1 0 10 0 0.0000 American Eagle SFGAm IL 5 0 32 0 0.0000 Zippin' Pippin Libertyland TN 1 0 10 0 0.0000 Judge Roy Scream SFoT TX 3 0 20 0 0.0000 Tornado Adventureland IA 2 0 15 0 0.0000 Cannonball Lake Winnepesaukah GA 1 0 10 0 0.0000 Rattler Fiesta Texas TX 4 0 26 0 0.0000 Roller Coaster Lagoon UT 2 0 19 0 0.0000 Scooby Doo Kings Dominion VA 6 0 30 0 0.0000 Wildcat Lake Compounce CT 2 0 19 0 0.0000 Roller Coaster Puyallup Fair WA 2 0 17 0 0.0000 Cyclone Lakeside CO 2 0 17 0 0.0000 Lil' Dipper Camden Park WV 2 0 19 0 0.0000 Roller Coaster Playland BC 1 0 9 0 0.0000 Wildcat Elitch Gardens CO 3 0 20 0 0.0000 Psyclone S.F. Magic Mountain CA 3 0 20 0 0.0000 Colossus S.F. Magic Mountain CA 4 0 29 0 0.0000 The Grizzly Great America CA 4 0 21 0 0.0000