Joey said:
What EXACTLY was the deal with Pompei?
The weirdest thing is how distinct BGW is from the rest of the group in it's Intamin-hate. Oh, and of course, the Irony in them previously being so far up Arrow's arse. When I think "industry failure" I think "Arrow". I'm suspecting half Busch's favouring for Arrow was their "all-American" facade they used to boast.
Pompeii was a reliability nightmare and I remember statements on fan forums about how Intamin needed to modify the boats multiple (as in more than 3) times in order to reduce the splash radius. If I remember the statements right the splash zone from pompeii would reach to the train tracks with a loaded boat. There was also issues with Roman Rapids, but I cannot recall or find what they were, but they must not have helped much in Giles opinion of Intamin.
Arrow wasn't really an 'industry failure' like you say. They were good at spitting out rides for relatively cheap prices, even compared to early Intamin and B&M in the 90s. The only two times Busch chose Arrow over other companies were Big Bad Wolf and Drachen Fire. Big Bad Wolf was delayed due to Schwarz's bankruptcy in 1983, and they contacted Arrow because they were the only other company in the world with experience in that discipline of rides. Drachen Fire was built by Arrow because B&M wasn't able to handle the workload at that time (remember they were only a few years old) and because Arrow built two successful and popular roller coasters for them before.
The difference in BGW having 'their heads up Arrow's arse' and 'hating Intamin' is based entirely on their experiences with the company. BGW had great experiences with LNM, BBW, and Le Scoot, so they tabbed Arrow for Drachen Fire. BGW (particularly Giles) had horrible experiences with Roman Rapids and Pompeii, so they won't touch them.
I think the Intamin-hate was actually Busch-wide until InBev bought out Anheuser-Busch, because BGT did not have an Intamin ride built between when Pompeii was built and 2011, 3 years after the buyout. BGT must have a head ride engineer that either was not around during the AB era or just doesn't dislike Intamin, but during the AB-era all the 'sister rides' were built by the same company bar Kumba and Drachen Fire (for the reason I stated before). Le Scoot and Stanley Falls - Arrow, Tanganyika Tidal Wave and Pompeii - Intamin, Loch Ness and Python - Arrow, Montu and Alpengeist - B&M, Sheikra and Griffon - B&M, Roman Rapids and Congo River Rapids - Intamin. The latest 'sister ride' pairs built are very similar but have been built by different manufacturers bar one pair (Grover's, which are clones from Zierer), Verbolten and Cheetah Hunt - Zierer and Intamin, and Mach Tower and Falcon's Fury, Moser and Intamin. This shows that SWP&E still follows the Busch's sister ride tradition, but lets the individual parks handle more of the bruntwork in contracting the ride. Compare this to a company like Cedar Fair, which makes the executive decision for every major addition to be built in a park (Intimidators, Wicked Twister, Xcelerator, Leviathan, Behemoth, Gatekeeper, Windseekers, Dinos Alive, every Planet Snoopy) and leaves the more minor additions up to the individual parks (KD's, KI's, and CW's Fountain upgrades and Kings Dominion's retrograding the Grove into Candy Apple Cove or w/e it's called).
And for the final paragraph in this post that's dearly not needed, Busch did not have "'an All-American' facade." They imported merchandise from the countries that they represented in their hamlets like the Beer Steins and Coo-coo clocks from Germany, and the Masquerade Masks from France. The only "All-American" thing that Busch has done is support the US Military through the Here's to the Heroes Program, something Anheuser Busch has been doing for over 150 years.
