The Cyclone Racer

 

 

A classic wooden coaster.  Side-by-side tracks with cars on each.  Every ride was a race against the other train of cars.  An imposing first drop.  I could barely get Judy to ride it, but once I got her on it I couldn’t get her off it.  She loved/hated/loved it.  The coolest roller coaster on the planet.

 

The Cyclone Racer was located at the Pike.  The Pike was built in 1902

 

The Pike had the Cyclone Racer, Tilt-a-Whirl, The Rotor, bumper cars, a double ferris wheel, a diving bell with sharks, U-drive-em boats, pinball arcades, house of mirrors, tunnel of love, funhouse, saltwater taffy and cotton candy.  There were horse racing games, squirt guns and bb guns, and The Plunge.  There was that apparatus you hit with a sledge hammer to ring the bell.  (It looks like you have to be really strong to do it, but it turns out you just need a smooth rhythm with the hammer and even a skinny teenage kid like me can do it.)  Fun for all ages.

 

The Pike was first a place where families could take kids, our parents took us there, but later it devolved into an unsavory collection of shops, arcades, and characters that we were forbidden to visit as teenagers.  As a teenager it was one of my favorite places.  It remains the only place I have ever been arrested and jailed.

 

(A cascade of poor decisions on my part, in the middle of the night long after all the attractions at the Pike were closed, resulted in a night spent in the drunk tank.)  Am I right, Cousin Ed?  (Honorable mention, but no thanks, to an older brother who had advised a younger me that if I was going to drink, drink Vodka, because cops can’t smell vodka on your breath.)  (Although ironically, it would be that same brother I called in the wee hours of the next morning to come bail me out, not realizing that cousin Ed had spent the whole night downstairs in the police station waiting for me.)

 

Right up the road from the Pike was The Plunge.

 

The Plunge was special.  It was a giant indoor salt-water pool right next to the ocean.  It had a fountain you could climb up on without getting in trouble!  One of the great achievements of my youth; getting big enough to make that climb.