June 9th, 2001 (10-4pm)

I went to the Rides Office, clocked/signed in and then headed on up to the Wildcat where our ride group was having it's daily morning meeting. Our green tag was there... but he was making things up on the spot. We ended up going around and introducing ourselves, lol. After everyone was there, he handed out ride assignments. I knew I was in for a good day when he said, "James -- Wildcat".

I made my way up to the Wildcat, but got sent back to frontline - ugh. After an hour at frontline, I got to operate. "Welcome to the Wildcat..." Operating the Wildcat is a lot of fun. You get to give the speech, which you can change as long as the basic message is the same. The coolest part is the dispatch button. Hersheypark has put a "touch button" on instead of a normal button. All the operator has to do is slide his or her hand onto the button and the train leaves the station. It's very cool.

The park itself was extremely crowded. We had an hour line all day for the Wildcat. Other rides, like Tidal Force and Canyon River Rapids easily had waits of about 1 hour 45 minutes -- pushing two hours.

I got asked a variety of interesting questions. "How fast does the Wildmouse go?" (Well, last season, we clocked it at 28mph, so it probably hits around that speed this year).
"Are there any rollercoasters that have shorter waits than this one [wildcat]" (I suggest you check out the Lightning Racer -- it usually has a very short line, even on crowded days).

I even got to have a conversation, while I was a frontline, with a guy who wanted to know all about the restraint systems on all the rollercoasters and how the compare/contrast. Good thing I read about that stuff!

I had a great time working the Wildcat; it's just too bad that I won't get to work the ride more than once a week or so.