Like Having a Roller Coaster in Your Yard : Magic Mountain: Nearby kids and their families buy season passes to hang out at the amusement park. These locals soon learn to avoid lines and tourists.

The trio of Newhall boys pushed through the turnstile at Six Flags Magic Mountain and headed like robots toward a blue Nintendo sign beckoning them to enter a video game tournament.

“It’s closed,” Lucas Salles-Cunha, 11, said with a frown as he and his companions approached the attraction. All three let out a collective sigh, realizing that they had 30 minutes to kill before the game opened.

And there, standing before the closed Nintendo trailer, surrounded by 260 acres of amusement park, 45 rides, four giant roller coasters, games, countless fast-food stands and even some girls, the Newhall trio was suddenly bored. They were forced to ponder the dreaded question of the dog days of summer.

“What do you want to do?” asked Lucas’ 14-year-old brother, Andre.

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?” responded Marko Haarma, 14. “You wanna go on Colossus?” he asked, referring to a towering wooden roller coaster with a 115-foot drop.

“Yeah, I guess,” Lucas said.

It was just another day at Magic Mountain for these Santa Clarita Valley kids. Another day of listening to the high-pitched screams of those who are still unaccustomed to thrill rides. Another day of French fries, water rides and video games.

“I think I’ve been here about 20, 25 times this season,” Marko said. “We came twice last week because of Nintendo,” Andre said.

Their multiple visits and nonchalant way of moving through an amusement park known for its white-knuckle roller coasters are not unusual. They are members of a legion of season pass holders, most from the Santa Clarita Valley, who consider the amusement park an extension of their own back yards.

Many of these regulars--which, according to Magic Mountain officials, represent “a good portion” of the more than 3 million people who will come to the park this year--boast of 20-plus visits each summer. They shout out what kind of twist, turn, drop or fall a ride will take seconds before it happens. They eat only select food from their favorite snack shacks. They do not mingle with the tourist crowd. They know how to work the park to avoid moving with the packs.

And they never, ever stand in long lines.

“If we see long lines, we go home,” Andre said.

In a valley that has no mall, only one theater complex and two bowling alleys, and that is about an hour’s drive from the beach, Magic Mountain is a substitute neighborhood hangout, a place where youths and adults alike pop in and out for a couple of hours as if it were a drop-in recreation center.

Jeff Kolin, director of parks and recreation for the 2-year-old city of Santa Clarita, said there is “tremendous demand” for entertainment in the burgeoning valley.

“We consistently hear that there are very limited commercial recreational facilities here outside of Magic Mountain,” Kolin said.

To fill the entertainment dearth somewhat, Santa Clarita has boosted the number of parks programs and sponsors free summer concerts at local parks. This year, 9,771 Santa Clarita residents are participating in public parks programs, up nearly 30% from 1990. But not everyone gets in. Waiting lists are typical for swimming and other aquatic lessons, tennis and day camps.

“There’s really not much to do out here,” said Morgan Johnson, 15, of Newhall, who met up with his friends, the Newhall trio, in the Nintendo line. “The mall hasn’t been built yet. There’s no water park, no skating rink. This is about it.”

Hanging out at Magic Mountain isn’t limited to teen-agers either. Moms like it too.

“To be honest with you, I don’t know what else I would do with the kids sometimes,” said Sharon Marsella, 38, of Castaic, who frequently brings her 7-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son to play on the kiddie rides. Her teen-age son, Matthew, works at the park.

“Sometimes me and my husband bring the kids up just for a couple of hours,” Marsella said. “They go and play, and we sit around and have time to talk.”

Season pass holders plop down $49.95 a year for a laminated picture card and have unlimited entry into Magic Mountain. A family pass for four costs $150; passes for children under 48 inches tall are $25 because they cannot board the roller coasters for safety reasons. A one-day ticket costs $24.

Although Magic Mountain officials guard the actual number of season pass holders like a trade secret, the repeated visits of these patrons made up “a substantial number” of the 3.2 million people who entered the gates in 1990, said Courtney Simmons, Magic Mountain spokeswoman.

“They are a good portion of our business,” Simmons said. “This is the playground for the Santa Clarita and San Fernando” valleys.

To continually entice season pass holders into the park, Magic Mountain officials schedule a steady stream of attractions, such as the Nintendo tournament and concerts.

On a recent Monday, Carol Weatherman, 39, of Newhall supervised her Nintendo-playing 10- and 13-year-old boys while relaxing on a nearby bench beneath a shade tree. She has purchased a family pass for three years. She estimated that about half the families in her neighborhood buy the passes.

“My husband and I were just here on Friday night to celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary,” Weatherman said. “We went on the rides we wanted to go on. No kids. We saw a video show and then went out to dinner.”

With children in tow, Weatherman said she carefully plots the day according to crowd and weather patterns. On a typical visit, the family stays about eight hours and spends $30 on food and drinks.

“We don’t need to buy souvenirs or T-shirts,” she said.

They are in line before the park opens. In the cool of the morning, they hit Viper, Ninja, Colossus and Revolution, the park’s popular roller coasters. They eat lunch at the Bugs Bunny Pavilion, where a children’s plate with a cheeseburger, fries and drink costs $3.27.

As the afternoon sun bears down on Santa Clarita walkways, the Weatherman clan heads for the water rides, positioning themselves for a cooling swoosh of water on attractions named Roaring Rapids and Tidal Wave.

A more intense approach to the frequent-visitor game plan was demonstrated by a pair of season pass holders from neighboring Simi Valley. Although a 30-minute drive limits their visits to two or three a month, they remain for 12 hours at a time.

After entering the gates along with other members of their church group, Thomas Goddard and Kenny Beverford, both 12, darted away from the others and literally sprinted toward Ninja, like schoolboys set free by a recess bell.

They raced past the tourists clustered around park maps. When they saw from a distance that Ninja was not yet rolling, they dashed to their second choice, Revolution.

“We get to the rides before everyone else,” Thomas explained, sweating and panting but pleased by a five-minute line. He said he has spent summer mostly jumping on a trampoline, swimming and visiting Magic Mountain about 15 times.

Thomas’ key to a productive day at Magic Mountain?

“I get a foot massage about 5 or 6 o’clock,” he said, adding that he and his buddies seek out special clusters of log-shaped benches, place their hot, aching feet on a vibrating platform and drop a quarter into a slot.

“People don’t think that kids get tired. But we do,” Thomas said. “Sometimes we’ll stay there about an hour.”

By dusk, they are refreshed for dinner, more rides and the fireworks finale.

The most sophisticated Magic Mountain season pass holders are youths such as Matthew Marsella, 17, of Castaic, who has spent a good part of his adolescence at the park down the road from his house.

A season pass holder for four years, Matthew now works at Magic Mountain operating the Revolution roller coaster. He said he’s been to the park about once a week since he was 13 because “I basically love roller coasters.”

Matthew estimates that he has taken the 55-m.p.h. spins around the centrifugal turns of Viper about 1,000 times.

“No, really, I’m not kidding,” he said. “There have been days when the park is slow that I rode it 40 or 50 times.”

Matthew, who could technically be viewed as a professional park visitor now that he is an employee, has devised a complicated course to achieve maximum ride-time potential.

In the summer, he goes only on Monday and Tuesday, when outsider crowds are sparse.

“Guests are like a big herd. They migrate though the park going to the first rides they see or the most popular ones,” he said.

A pro such as himself starts the day about noon or 1 p.m. to avoid the morning throng. He begins at the far northern corner of the park, breezing onto rides such as Colossus. By 3 p.m., he hits the southern rides, the popular roller coasters that guests go to first thing in the morning.

He said most of his friends from Saugus High School hold season passes, and many end up taking summer jobs at the park.

“Believe me, if you live here in this valley, you go to Magic Mountain,” Matthew said. “For me, it’s been kind of like a second home.”