Coaster101 Park Mania 2022: The Vote-In Round!

As college basketball writer Jon Rothstein frequently tweets, This Is March. You know what March means? It’s that time of year at Coaster101 where we fill out a college basketball bracket, have it bust after the first two days of the college basketball tournament, and shift our focus to what some (no one) call “The most important bracket in March.”

This year, we’ve brought back our annual bracket event called Park Mania! (cleverly named in an effort not to get a cease and desist letter!) with a few twists.

First, a bit of history. We have had five years of Park Mania, each year featuring a different winner. The inaugural challenge in 2017 was won by Idaho’s Silverwood Theme Park. The next year, it was Kings Island, followed by Hersheypark in 2019. Last year, even though there was no big college basketball bracket, Holiday World took home the 2020 Park Mania bracket championship. In 2021, we changed up the bracket process a little bit, and Carowinds claimed the title.

Just like the “real” bracket, we’ve included 68 parks from across North America to vie for the coveted Park Mania trophy. However, this year, at the suggestion of our twitter followers, there are no rankings and no geographic regions. With the exception of the “vote-in” rounds, the parks were randomly selected for their match-ups. Just like the basketball tournament, we’ve created a “Vote-In” round where 8 parks will have the chance to be voted into the final 64-park field. This year, “vote-in” rounds work a little differently, as several multi-property parks have been split up to determine who will advance into the main bracket. Each region is named for RMC Tracks!

Instead of the parks facing off against each other on the hardwood, we’re going to let you, the readers of Coaster101.com, decide your pick for your favorite park in North America!

We have updated our voting process slightly and are closely monitoring spikes in votes. We will not be reporting exact results on social media during this year’s Park Mania, and voting percentages will be hidden this year. We reserve the right to remove any potentially fraudulent votes from the results, which kind of defeats the purpose of this being fun. Bottom Line: Don’t cheat and ruin this for your favorite park and everyone else legitimately voting for them!

Each voting round will take place over several days, and the schedule will be as follows. We’ll create a post each day with new polls for voting. All voting will be done right here on Coaster101.com, and will end at approximately 8:00pm Eastern time on the specified date.

Vote In Round Voting: Monday, March 14-Wednesday, March 16

Round One Voting: Thursday, March 17-Sunday, March 20

Round Two Voting: Monday, March 21-Wednesday, March 23

Regional Semi-Final Voting: Thursday, March 24-Sunday, March 27

Regional Final Voting: Monday, March 28-Wednesday, March 30

National Semi-Final Voting: Thursday, March 31-Saturday, April 2

Championship Voting: Sunday, April 3-Tuesday, April 5

Winner Announced: Wednesday, April 7