Loop 034 printable

Volume 2, No. 10. June 14, 2002

Friday: Santa Cruz 50
Dave Ferrari was looking for a job. The 10-year-old boy went down to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk a few blocks from his Santa Cruz, California, home to pester some of the concessionaires for work. It was May 17 and one of the concessionaires suggested he check out the new coaster that opened that day. Ferrari got a free ticket to do so, saving him 15 cents.

On May 24, Ferrari rode the coaster again for perhaps the 150th time, he estimated, and again got to ride it for free, this time saving $3.60. That’s the inflation of the intervening 78 years and one week between the Giant Dipper’s opening day and the celebration of 50 million riders on the wood coaster. Handwritten records of ridership before installation of a turnstile in 1976 (which has counted 30 million riders) helped the Boardwalk estimate when the ride was approaching 50 million riders. However, Public Relations Manager Jan Bollwinkel-Smith said they could not pinpoint the exact 50 millionth guest.

“Instead of pinpointing one person who just happened to go through the turnstile, we decided it would be better to honor everybody,” she said. That meant a full day’s worth of free rides on the Giant Dipper for all comers, free commemorative drink coasters for the first 1,000 rides, and spotlighting Ferrari as the “honorary 50 millionth rider.” He is now 88 but still living in the house where he grew up a few blocks away. “It has been two or three years since he rode (The Dipper), but he still loved it,” Bollwinkel-Smith said.

The event had been planned for May 24 rather than May 17 or the actual day of the estimated milestone ride as a good publicity-heavy kickoff for the summer season—which the Boardwalk traditionally celebrates on the Friday before Memorial Day. Thanks to rain-laden weekends in the spring, however, the celebratory day almost hit its mark. “We think we hit the actual 50 million around 3 p.m. on May 23,” Bollwinkel-Smith said.

Meanwhile, the honored day did its job of generating publicity and crowds. “People got excited about free rides on the Dipper,” Bollwinkel-Smith said. They started lining up at 10 a.m., an hour before the coaster opened, and by the end of the promotion at 8 p.m. Giant Dipper had thrilled another 8,500. That did not break the June 27, 1987, record of 13,729 riders in one day, but the number was “pretty good,” Bollwinkel-Smith said, considering the coaster ran an additional three hours on the record-setting day, and on May 24 local high schools were still in session.

The day also succeeded in paying homage to a Giant among amusement park rides. “For us it’s another way to honor this coaster that we’re really proud of,” Bollwinkel-Smith said. “I call it a memory builder. I still get so many e-mails from people talking about 'when I went on Dipper in 1950. . .'” And one neighbor who remembered going on Dipper in 1924. For free.