Welcome to the second edition of "Notes From the Wild West...". This week's update was going to be small as I didn't expect much to be going on with Maverick - I could be no farther from the truth. Track has been removed,
interesting things have appeared in the pond, and a bracket on the train are among the things I'll touch on in this update.
Maverick is heartless
 The heartline inversion has been removed from the ride
(to see photos with the inversion - visit
last week's update). First off I must say pictures do not do it justice - in person it appears a lot more track is gone than the photos show
(the removed track has been already removed from the site).
The photos are only taken from the one angle since it is impossible to
take a good shot from any other angle. I have mixed in some photos of the now empty area below.
For any construction nerds or those who were wondering how they got a crane to the construction
area... here is my guess. First, they actually used two cranes to get the job done to help solve
the problem of getting inside the ride. One crane sits on the bayside part of the heartline roll canyon area
(thus not having to travel under any track). The other one sits in the middle of the pond. How did they get it there? I noticed near Wave Swinger
roughed-up grass and sure enough following the roughed-up grass was a
gravel ramp down into the pond. My guess would be if the trucks bringing
the track in can't get under the ride (near the canyon) to get to the pond, the track
would be simply brought through the park, down the ramp and into the pond under the hill following the launch
(like how the crane got there).
Water will play a part...
 
The official park blog has been teasing a surprise for Maverick. Let me put in my guess. With the pond drained for the heartline removal I noticed several water pumps/canyons around the lower part of the drop right before the train would head into where the heartline once was. Take a look at the photos and you be the judge. The pumps/canyons appear to be pointing straight up
(except one of them) which would lead me to believe that riders would not get wet (except for a small mist if it is windy).
Brackets...
 On my last pass through the park, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, something was added to the front of a Maverick train. The bracket most likely will be used to secure a camera so the park can film the official POV video of the ride. Looks like they are wasting no time and want to shoot that the second the ride gets up and running.
Getting
ready...
Throughout my visit to the park employees were busy washing the queue
area and polishing up the entire area.
'Till Next Week...
That will about do it for this week. Look for another update sometime
early next week!
- Andrew Hyde
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