Holy crap! I hadn't worked out an accurate mental image. What if for some reason the kid wasn't able to follow the loop?
I haven't listened yet so I don't know whether Greggulator covered this, but this website has some stories about that:
http://www.domainofdeath3.com/actionpark "The picture you have up is real and not altered in any way. I used to work there and I rode on it once. Everyone makes it out to be the most insane things action park did but it wasn’t that bad. I remember one person getting stuck in the tube because instread of riding down with her feet crossed and arms folded across her chest she put them out and braked then didn’t have the speed to get around. That is why they built the hatch at the bottom of the slope (not the top of the loop as the wikipedia article suggests).
"A few people did similar things or for some other reason did not get sufficient speed and they landed face first on the inside of the top of the loop. One person injured his two upper front teeth when he did this and had them dig into the soft lining (it was like wrestling mat material). The biggest problem is that sand and dirt and such would collect at the botton of the loop and the people would start comming out with abrasions over their entire backs. Then they would have to close it down and clean it out. I believe (and I could be wrong about this) that what finally closed it down was that after it was open for a short while an insurance adjuster finally came around to look at it and went ballistic."
Also:
"I remember another latin man and his young son doing it when I was doing it. The man had no problems, but his son who was very young, and very brave, got stuck in the tube. He looked about 10 years old and was too light to build the momentum needed to make it all the way around the loop.I remember wondering how they were going to get him out. They opened a trap door at the bottom of the loop. It took several minutes to get him out, he looked a little shook up but otherwise fine. My friends and I went to go on other rides and later in the day I went to go on it again, but they had closed it 'for the day'"