This week the saline county fair in saline Michigan was going on, so like I do most years, I decided to go for a few hours. 


Sizzler (X1), this is a new ride for 2025, not just for the fair but for the provider, Elliot's amusements. This replaced the rare Allan Herschel roc-n'-roll at the fair. This is the best traveling scrambler/sizzler I've ridden. It ran so so damn fast that everything was just a blur, I couldn't make out any of my surroundings. I could hardly get out of the car afterwards because of how dizzy it made me. It had a long cycle too, I believe it ran full speed for about 3 minutes. 

Crazy dance (X3). This is a fabbri crazy dance, one of only a few in the country. It was formerly known as cortina Bob, but In 2023 it got a brand new backdrop, skirt, operator booth, paint and sound system, and with the overhaul it was renamed to crazy dance. This year they added some awfully annoying automated lines telling people to get in line for it. This year it also ran the fastest I've ever seen (for content, I've ridden this ride 510 times over the course of 10 years), it could be the best break dance ride in the country

Twister swing (X1). This is a mulligan twister swing, the main difference between this and a wave swinger is that the chairs are mounted on cables and can spin, most of the ride my chair was backwards or sideways. It's a contender for the best swing ride I've ridden. 

Tempest (X1). This is a grover Watkins tempest. This one is still fully hand operated, and hasn't been upgraded with any sort of automated controls. Usually this ride runs pretty slow (for context, I've also ridden this ride a shit load of times, somewhere around 300 over the last 10 years), but today the operator pushed the lever full forward (usually they leave it about half way), and let it run for close to 4 minutes. This was one of the most violent rides I've ever had on a flat ride, and in tern, was some of the most fun I had on it. In my car (which seats 7) there were only 3 people including myself, and the operator loaded us all on one side, so we had a very unbalanced car, and we spun like crazy. 

Sea ray (X1). This is a mulligan sea ray, it's a decent pirate ship, as usual for this visit, it ran a long cycle. I think we had close to 20 max swings. Every max swing gives some airtime. Something that doesn't matter to the ride experience, but there was not a single straight panel on this ride. Every single metal panel has dents in it. 

Tornado (X1). This is a wisdom rides tornado, a very early one at that. It ran a middle of the road cycle for this type of ride, it was long, like every other ride today, but it didn't run too fast. But between the 4 people in my gondola, we got the car spinning pretty fast, and that's always fun.

A quick visit to the county fair [trip report]