Lyle ran in with news of King’s Dominion Amusement Park installing a new roller coaster, not only a new rollercoaster, but one named after his favorite race car driver, Dale Earnhardt, and its going to be 305 feet tall, like Earnhardt’s Intimidator 305. 

    Lyle has to be in Lyle heaven. Not only NASCAR but roller coasters, his too biggest passions. Lyle brushes his Earnhardt mustache, adjusts his Oakley shades and tugs on his GM Goodwrench jacket as he walks over.
   
    “Silliman, I’m going to be there for the opening next spring.  I’m saving up, ‘cause this is one giga-coaster I want to ride,” says Lyle. “It’s got a 305 foot rise and a 300 foot straight down drop; it’ll be like being in the car with Earl.” 
  
         Lyle, are you sure they’re even going to build that thing…with the economy so up and down? 

“Silliman, you did NOT just say UP and DOWN talking about a roller coaster.  Of course they’re going to build it.  They are building it now.  And who in the world wouldn’t want to ride an Earnhardt Intimidator shaped rollercoaster car?” 

         Yeah, that sounds brilliant.  Riding on a rollercoaster named after someone who died in a car wreck. Are you going to take Mia with you?  (I’m wondering if Lyle will take his little Thai 97 pound wife and whether they can find a seat tight enough to keep her from flying out.) 

         I’m thinking … let Lyle have his fun.  Because I’m not getting anywhere close to roller coasters myself.  Not anymore.  The last time I was on a coaster was at the New York, New York Hotel in Las Vegas, where the wife and I were woken every morning by screaming riders going up the coaster right in front of our 30th story bedroom window. And every day we went down to ride the coaster and found the wait to be 2-3 hours for a two minute ride! We finally -- by luck – went down on an elevator, got off on the wrong floor and found ourselves in a short 30 minute waiting line.   Well, all right, we thought, let’s do it! So what if we were the only gray hairs in the line with kids looking at us like we were there to see off our grand children? That was fun … also prior to many back surgeries so let’s just say we’ll not be planning a trip to Richmond.

    Lyle showed us by going to www.intimidator305.com we could view and ride a simulation, a virtual coaster. The coaster is 5100 feet, almost one mile with a three minute ride at speeds of 90 plus mph. The 300 foot drop is at 85 degrees, which for most purposes is STRAIGHT down. The $ 25 million monster is a joint venture between Dale Earnhardt Inc. and
Cedar Fair Entertainment, owner of King’s Dominion. The coaster cars will be adorned with the number 3. Reminds me about driving around my little niece where we kept seeing trucks with number 3’s on them. She started weeping, worried there might have been an accident on Sesame Street. I asked her if she thought drivers of Silverados were Sesame Street fans. She said “Everybody loves Sesame Street.”

    Possibly, just as many loved Dale Earnhardt. Now they’ll get to enjoy a speedy experience while helping to support his widow.