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Show JTV V-If v- A. cv ipf ....... Tr I :! M f - f ""-.: ' L - K VJ 1 II f f M - CIY ! ' ;i J I , Sf K-U ! ; . . CiV -f hi- nrt) AM i Mil -'iftr ' qI'-x '.if .5 i. ' v vi t ' .'fir ' v" -1r' ""4 t- Vi w 'eX''--j wi KLiOT J F. t?r rs?h&M PHOTO BY ROGER TUTTlf Sfr'.MU".' &' ' , , V i K ; ' . .-.W' y. .,;;.; :.'..'.:;.-, " .:: ' yWy-W 9 i wW- V I A. ,...,...v ,...t, -to. ..,aas. . Mfe .... The "Vootex" at Kings Island, Ohio makes six upside-down loops; and the "Iron Dragon" at Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio is a suspended coaster. THRILL SEEKERS DELIGHT Ronald V. Toomer, president of Arrow Dynamics, has a hard time testing his creations. He suffers from motion sickness. First ever upside down loop Designing 'monsters' sind 'dr&gons9 in Clearfield 1 . I f i I - I : f WW $10 million and this year has grossed gros-sed $12 million. Projections look to be between $15-$ 18 million. With close to 60 employees, this is indeed in-deed a great company. "We have a very low turn-over rate at Arrow. Our employees are in the Freeport Center. One half of a building is filled with engineers and draftsmen. "With a background in defense engineering, my career has never been boring," he said. "I bend a lot of wire coming up with ideas for Joe Caldwell, Dal Freeman and Al Allred dicuss plans for a new "top-secret" creation. J " 1 Just one of the midsize roller coasters costs about $2.5 million for the hardware alone. The installation is. up to 75 percent of the hardware costs." I I s i i 1 By VICKI CROCCO CLEARFIELD Arrow Dynamics Dyna-mics make the zoom and swoop that thrill seekers love and scares the stuffing out of the not-so-brave. If you don't like going upside down in these new loop-to-loop roller coasters, you're not alone. President of Arrow Dynamics, the originators of those machines, Ronald V. Toomer, doesn't either. The man who began his career designing de-signing roller coasters, suffers from motion sickness. Clearfield is the home of the world's largest manufacturer of amusement rides. It began in 1945 as a job machine shop in California where the company was commissioned commis-sioned to design a carousel for the city of San Jose. Later, when Walt Disney was looking for rides to fill Disneyland, he went to Arrow Dynamics. It was in 1965 Toomer joined the team. He is a mechanical engineer who found it difficult to test ride his creations. The company has designed such rides as Runaway Mine Trains at Six-Flaggs over Texas, the log flume at Lagoon, and the first ever upside down full loop roller coaster at Knotts Berry Farm. That one was built in 1975 and has inspired the over 65 upside-down roller coas ters all over the world. The highest stands 165 feet and loops seven times. That one is located at Six-Flaggs Six-Flaggs Great America in Illinois. In 1970 the company was sold to the Rio Grande Railroad in Denver, De-nver, but by the mid-70's, the cost of living in San Francisco rose so high the steel fabrication works moved to Utah. The Rio Grande was looking to get out of the business busi-ness at that time and the company was sold to German manufacturer, Arrow Huss. The engineering group moved to Clearfield in 1984, the same year Hess filed chapter 11. The company kept doing business busi-ness selling rides, and developed a reorganization plan approved by the courts and Huss was paid his share of the company's equity. Business has been great ever since, according to Toomer. Toomer and vice presidents Bob Hughes and Brent Meikle own 58 percent of the company and nine other employees own the remaining remain-ing share. Last year Arrow grossed to figure out all aspects of the designs de-signs from "G" forces to materials stress factors," said Toomer. "My favorite comment was from a fellow watching us put up a coaster. coas-ter. He asked "You guys plan this stuff in advance?" Just one of the mid-sized roller coasters costs about $2.5 million for the hardware alone. The installation instal-lation is up to 75 percent of the hardware costs. Liability insurance costs up to $5 million a year, but is rarely needed. Upwards of 200 million people a summer ride amusement rides and very few serious injuries occur, according to Toomer. "We've never had a fatality from mechanical failures. The ride operators oper-ators are the ones who usually can be cited for negligence. And, peoClj pie just do stupid stuff some-v' times," said Toomer. "In all the years the amusement rides have operated, only 30 to 40 fatalities have occurred and that includes in-cludes the 15 teens in the haunted house in New Jersey. Compare that with the 50,000 auto deaths a year," Toomer said. Arrow Dynamics has created dozens of rides, but Toomer spends most of his time traveling rather than designing these rides. Their overseas trade is booming. "I really don't see any problem doing overseas business. It's just not that difficult. The Japanese are great to work with. They take their time making decisions, but once they do, they are very honorable. No long complicated contracts are necessary. They've already decided de-cided you're trustworthy at that point. "We have the best reputation in the business. Our quality sells the products for us. We're talking about ab-out new ndes with Lagoon but they don't like buying new rides very often," Toomer said. The future may include video electronic rides such as those at Magic Mountain and Disneyland. As the ad for the Utah Works promotion says, "...Whether it's the Loch Ness monster in Busch Gardens, the Dragon at Ocean Park in Hong Kong, the Log Flume right here at Lagoon, or hundreds ot other ndes around the world you can bet that Arrow made it Arrow Dynamics is providing jobs, tax dollars, and plenty of evidence evi-dence that Utah works " happy here. We have a good benefit be-nefit program and try to keep wages above the Utah standard of living," said Toomer. Arrow is located in two buildings coasters. Somedays it makes me wish I had spent more time paying attention to my physics professors. Now, we're considered the physics experts. People call us about aerodynamic problems. We have This unidentified worker puts the finishing touches on a one-fourth one-fourth scale mock-up of a new ride. ' ' , if f"1 If , s f HI Vr I ::yMy ' ; f r V v. f -: ... -. fe.n.. ii. i ,, """" 11 mi II f llmm n. ! nil i nri.iijl Engineers, Dal Freeman and Al Allred consider everything from "G" forces to stress factors in their designs. inMiinMiii'iriii'i''i-M nrriii Lilian. i mi mnTiMiiiiiinm m niniirrmiiBifr Jay Brown is just one of the 60 "happy" employees helping to design "fun" at Arrow Dynamics. |
