Mike Boodley

Fifty years ago this month, on August 14, 1975, seventeen-year-old Mike Boodley set a Guinness world record for consecutive roller coaster rides by riding the Coney Island Cyclone 1,001 times over 45 hours. He shares vivid memories of the ride, how it came about, and the people who cheered him on and rode with him.

Boodley's childhood fascination with roller coasters and dream of designing them led him to earning an engineering degree from Pratt, gaining a toehold in the industry, and designing his first wooden coaster in the early '90s. In 1994, he and Clair Hain Jr. founded Great Coasters International and were honored for their exceptional wooden coasters with the Legends Award at the 2023 Golden Tickets Awards. 

Other topics discussed in the interview include consulting with Knoebels to perfect their Flying Turns, a wooden bobsled coaster design last seen in Coney Island's Bobsled from the 1939 New York World's Fair; the influence of Coney Island's Tornado and other Prior & Church coasters on his roller coaster designs; and memories of Astroland's flamboyant publicist Milton Berger, whose career advice when he was a teen stayed with him.