I’m No Longer a Virgin the Day After Riding Rita
I’ve just finished getting together my photos from the ECC Airpocalypse Weekend.
The whole weekend was superb - a great opportunity to ride some world-class rides, meet some new people and say hello to all the familiar faces.
After a hiccup at the gate down the woodland walk (someone forgot the key) which meant we missed most of our ERS on Nemesis, Alton Towers went all-out to make it up and treated us very well on Saturday.
We had a nice lunch in the hospitality marquee, which also featured a chance to see the BBC Inside Out documentary which has been made about a few of the club members this year. It was also announced that, to say sorry for the morning, Alton were giving us a half hour ERS on Spinball Whizzer at the end of the day.
Disaster almost struck when Rita - our real evening ERS coaster - went down towards the end of the day. Alton’s team did everything possible to ensure it was back up and running for us, and even let us into the machine room to see the behind-the-scenes mechanics of the ride. It turned out that, not only were we the first group to privately ride Rita, but we were also the first people to ever ride her in the dark.
To top off the day, Alton even laid on a couple of shuttle buses to return us back to the car park, saving us that long plod back on foot.
Sunday was the day I’d been dreading - it played host to the morning ERS on Drayton Manor’s Apocalypse. I’m no big fan of drop towers let alone 180ft ones, so this was going to be a challenge.
Thankfully, everybody made it easy for me, telling me that I didn’t have to ride it if I didn’t want to.
Over coffee, it was announced that there would be a special “Apocalypse Virgin’s Ride” as the first ride of the day. B*&@#�ds - I’m never gonna forgive you.
Somehow, I was gently persuaded (read: physical manhandled) into riding not just the sit-down, but also the stand-up side. Fellow Apocalypse-virgin-compadre Richard SC and I decided that we might as well complete the set (mad? us?) and rode the “terrifying” stand-up floorless side too - we even got Richard B to join us. Stand-up proved way scarier.
Lunch was outstanding: a full three-course meal including a full Sunday roast. Park MD Colin Bryan was on hand to give us an update on the park and answer questions.
Our evening ERS was on G-Force, Drayton’s new coaster for 2005. It’s a great little coaster which does a lot in its compact size, but it has an annoying problem with its restraints: they get progressively tighter throughout the ride, leaving it difficult to breathe by the end (or maybe that was just all the running around the queueline and up the stairs for an hour!)
Another brilliant ECC trip - can’t wait for Yorkshire in two weeks!
