2006 though ended up being a turning point for Kings Island.  That year Paramount's finally got out of the theme park business when they sold their five North American parks including Kings Island to Cedar Fair. 



No more were there going to be rides built to promote movies.  No more were there going to be cloned rides spread across the chain.  Cedar Fair's business is amusement parks not movies and one of their first additions was to finally add a B&M to Kings Island. 



Diamondback; a B&M Hyper Coaster opened in 2009 and suddenly Kings Island had a serious thrill machine on their hands.  It was a huge success and soon the words "B&M Inverted" started to pop up in conversations, websites and coaster forums about what Kings Island would be adding next.



In 2009 the huge mistake known as Son of Beast which was a severely troubled worlds tallest, fastest and first modern looping wooden coaster was finally closed down after an accident that caused the park to remove the loop, $30 million in work to get the ride running as it should, lawsuits and numerous injuries was closed forever.   



Son of Beast stood idle through 2012 when it was finally torn down (I have a chunk of it somewhere around the house here) and its blight was removed from the park.   Speculation quickly began as to what could be placed on the huge plot of ground that SOB took up and at the top of the list was the long desired B&M Inverted Coaster.



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Paul B. Drabek