Worlds of Fun.Org: Over the (Lift) Hill with Timber Wolf and The Beast!

History does not exist in a vacuum. A fact that seems obvious but really isn’t – so many people like to pigeonhole history—the 70s and 80s, Kings Island and Worlds of Fun are separate topics, many say. However, the truth is that what happened at Kings Island impacts Worlds of Fun, and what happened in the 70s affects the 80s.

What does this have to do with Timber Wolf? Quite a bit. In the last ten years, I have written more editorials on Timber Wolf then any single attraction by far, which is why I never planned on writing an editorial specifically for Timber Wolf’s 30th anniversary. However, when I realized Beast turned 40 this year – and having already realized how many common factors both coasters shared (and how few realized it) – I felt Timber Wolf had room for one more story.

The Beast at Kings Island

As some know, Timber Wolf was designed by Curtis Summers and built by Charlie Dinn. It was the third coaster (but far from the last) built specifically by the team alone. Both, not surprisingly, came from Kings Island. Curtis Summers began his career working alongside John Allen, designer for Philadelphia Toboggan Company and designer of dozens of notable wooden coasters, many of which still operate, including the Kings Island Racer and the nearby Six Flags St. Louis Screamin’ Eagle. John Allen would retire after Screamin’ Eagle, and in 1978 when Kings Island (Kings Island Entertainment Company, or KECO) began the design for The Beast, Summers was involved with the structural engineering aspect of the project (specifically, the ride’s helix finale). Dinn was there too; as then-Kings Island’s Director of Construction, he oversaw the construction of what remains to this day the world’s longest wooden coaster. Dinn would leave the company in 1984, and until 1991, Curtis Summers and Charlie Dinn would work together on a variety of projects, including moving coasters, re-engineering existing coasters, and finally, in 1987, building brand new coasters. Until Summers’ retirement in 1991, the duo would build a total of 10 new coasters, and in many ways, launch the re-birth of the modern wooden coaster.

On November 10, 1988, Worlds of Fun announced the third of the 10 Summers/Dinn coasters, but that wasn’t the beginning of the story. For at least a year prior, members of the Hunt Midwest team visited parks across the country to ride many of the best coasters in the world. John Hudacek, General Manager of the park at the time, was quoted in the press release, stating, “This ride will be the culmination of years of research and study of the greatest roller coasters ever built.” Timber Wolf’s name was chosen in the same methodical fashion as it was designed, a “name the coaster” contest. The winning entry was submitted by Mark Pfefferkorn of Kansas City, Missouri, who won four round-trip airline tickets on Braniff Airlines and a 33-volume Encyclopedia Britannica set.

Timber Wolf heading into the station, notice the significant difference in restraints.

The description of the ride from the original press release presents very much like the coaster that opened on April 1, 1989 – a 95-foot first drop at 50 degrees, reaching speeds of 53 miles per hour, negative G-forces, and a double helix followed by hairpin curves. However, Timber Wolf, like almost every other coaster possibly ever built, wasn’t built exactly as it was designed as a short paragraph in the announcement press release attests.

“The train dives out of the helix, enduring a +2.48 G-force speeding into a series of hairpin curves before barreling through a dark tunnel that brings the train into the brake system before coasting into the station.”

It does seem odd now in retrospect that a headliner coaster built at a park where every other prior headliner coaster has a tunnel, and at least partially based on a coaster famous for its helix and tunnels (The Beast) and built by the same men that were involved in building said ride wouldn’t actually have a tunnel. Mamba, the first coaster that would follow Timber Wolf, would also have its tunnels cut, possibly for the same budgetary reasons.

John Hudacek, GM of the park at the time, speaks just prior to Timber Wolf's grand opening on April 1st, 1989.

Timber Wolf would open on schedule, and it remains to this day the earliest-opening coaster in Worlds of Fun history. It would open to the public on April 1, 1989, Worlds of Fun’s opening day for its 17th Season. However, the park had also opened the day before, March 31, for a promotional event in which 2,500 people were admitted at a ticket price of $10.00 each (regular park admission in 1989 was $17.95). It was sponsored by local radio stations KYYX-FM and WDAF-AM. Timber Wolf would open and run wild along with several other park rides (the Orient and Americana sections had select rides operating). A friend of mine was there for the event and went on to become one of Timber Wolf’s biggest fans and longest riders.

Of course, with Timber Wolf it was really more than just the ride – it was the marketing that went along with it that was legendary in itself. As J. David Holt, corporate director for marketing in Hunt Corp. was quoted saying, “The marketing strategy was based very much on the same kind of attractiveness and interest that a horror movie holds for a lot of people.” (KC Star Magazine March 31, 1989, p. 16d).

Billboard from the "name the coaster" contest.

Billboards covered with ripped burlap appeared in mid-March and were uncovered the weekend of its opening to reveal a warning of a Timber Wolf loose in the vicinity. Then there were the commercials. Who can forget the snowy woods, the Timber Wolf running through the snow, the red glowing eyes? Ready for the rest of the story?

Promo Video for Timber Wolf, which starts with footage from the 1989 commercials.

The snowy woods belonged to a small state park in Wisconsin. The wolves? Real timberwolves “rented” for a tidy sum of $10,000 for two days to film. Production costs for the ads alone was $130,000, and that was in 1988. Was it cold? You bet. Was it worth it? Mr. Holt said, “What we ended up with was worth every dime.”

Yes, Mr. Holt, it was.

Five years later, Timber Wolf made another huge impact on Worlds of Fun history. During the 1994/95 off-season, Timber Wolf was re-tracked and re-profiled, so in the words of those that rode it during the early 1995 season, it truly ran like a wolf possessed. Fifty-five members from the Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain visited the park on June 12th, 1995. One member of the club, Ian Mansfield, was quoted in the Kansas City star saying, “I’ve been riding roller coasters all of my life, and the Timber Wolf is definitely one of the great ones.” Timber Wolf wasn’t the only thing that was changing, either. Exactly one week later, on June 19, Hunt Midwest announced the sale of the park to Cedar Fair, L.P. At the time, Worlds of Fun was to become their fourth park, following Cedar Point, Valleyfair!, and Dorney Park.

The sale of the park would close on July 28, 1995. The moment Cedar Fair owned the park, trim brakes were added to Timber Wolf, restraints were changed, and Timber Wolf would be unquestionably altered forever. Timber Wolf would remain relatively unchanged over the next decade and a half. Starting in 2014, Cedar Fair and Great Coasters International have been systematically re-tracking and re-profiling much of the ride, and in 2018, they replaced the entire mid-ride helix, with a new, smoother banked turn. Work continues into the 2019 season, giving Timber Wolf a new lease on life, even at 30 years old.

Timber Wolf and it's new turn, replacing the old helix.

Today, Cedar Fair is a completely different organization than the one that bought Worlds of Fun in 1995. They now own 13 different parks, including Kings Island. Once again, the stories of Timber Wolf and The Beast are interconnected and part of the same unusual story. Some may say that The Beast and Timber Wolf have nothing in common, that they just happen to be two wooden coasters with a similar cast of characters that just so happen to now be owned by the same company. I disagree. No one can tell any full story of Timber Wolf without mentioning The Beast, and no one can tell the story of The Beast without mentioning Charlie Dunn or Curtis Summers. For that reason, I would like to think that we are not only celebrating two separate anniversaries for two separate parks, but two anniversaries for two different coasters tied together by history.

Happy 30th birthday to Timber Wolf, and Happy 40th birthday to The Beast!