Anybody who has been to a large fair has probably seen this tough to handle Larson International made abomination. Ring of Fire (aka. Ring of Rust,) is the quintessential ‘major’ carnie ride, and also the model White Trash Carnie Ride…Ring of Fire has the look that all other white trash rides strive to accomplish.

Basically, Ring of Fire is a large steel ring with a small train that is attached to a moving track. The track is sort of like a steel conveyor belt that spans the entire inside of the ring. The track is moved by hydraulic motors and rolls along rollers positioned all along the inside of the loop. Those rollers make the Ring of Fire’s characteristic clanky roaring sound.

During setup, the loop structure unfolds from the trailor and is then fastened at the top. Cables span the structure of the loop to keep it structurally sound. If the carnival wants to make it look cheesy, they can put those little multicolored pennants along the cables.

The Ride

Hey! Multicolored pennants!

A ride on Ring of Fire truly is horrible. I’m not saying that to make this review more humorous either; it really is awful, terrible, and even a bit disgusting. This is the account of my first, and probably last, Ring of Fire ride:

In July of 2005, I went to the Meadowlands Fair in East Rutherford, NJ with two of my cousins. After a day of rides, my cousin and I decided to ride Ring of Fire (the same exact one in the photo.) I mostly wanted to ride it because I heard it was terrible, and wanted to experience it first hand out of morbid curiosity. This particular Ring of Fire actually looked pretty decent with a new blackfinish and withat least 80%of the lightsworking with coolsequences.

We walked up the ramp, showed the ride op our handstamps, and proceeded to one of the seats. When I got to the seat, I was surprised to find that the compartment was about 3 1/2 feet wide, and about 2 feet front to back! It was smaller than hell! We crammed ourselves into the seat, and then waited like 10 minutes for all the other riders to load. During the 10 minutes, we noticed the total obliviousnous that people had to the 2 riders per seat rule, even though ride op and numerous signs had made the point clear. We also noticed the stagnant water smell that permiated the car, which of course means that someone had puked there in the not so far past.

The actual Ring of Fire in the story

Finally, the ride up closed the restraints, which are these giant padded lapbars that close downward. Once closed, the 2 steel bars that hold the bar in place are seriously no more than 8 inches away from your face. The op then closed the doors, pinning us in our cell for the next few minutes.

The train rocked back and forth quite a few times in attempt to complete a loop. To my absolute surprise, the ride was fairly smooth! During one of the final swings, some person’s pants button hit me in the face. I grabbed it somehow, and held onto it, contemplating what to do with it. After a couple of loops I simply chucked it into an unoccupied section of parking lot; hell it wasn’t mine so why care! I then started to get a bit nauseous; I had to close my eyes eventually so I wouldn’t get sick. Luckily the ride ended quickly, and I sort of stumbled out of the car because it’s damn near impossible to get out of that tiny seat in one clean motion.

Other Info

The evolution of Ring of Fire ride is as follows:

For the exception of the last two, the other 3 creations have one thing in common…they are all White Trash Carnie Rides!

Information found at: http://www.larsonintl.com/about.htm

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