Across the world today, there are only so many roller coasters that can genuinely be described as “icons”; rides recognized across the globe; known by their silhouette alone; forever emblazoned in the record books; renowned by generations, and even living on as legends beyond their time… From The Beast to Millennium Force; the Incredible Hulk to Nemesis; X2 to Lightning Rod; Steel Vengeance to El Toro… These are rides so renowned, the mere mention of them conjures images in the minds of coaster enthusiasts the world over.
Looming over that pantheon of iconic, landmark coasters is a record-setting ride that topped many thrill-seekers’ bucket lists: Top Thrill Dragster. Opened in 2003, the world’s first “stratocoaster” shattered expectations and pierced through the 400-foot coaster height record like it was tissue paper. And today, less than 20 years later, it’s officially set to spend a year in the most dreaded of coaster conditions: standing-but-not-operating… for now.
How did Top Thrill Dragster launch onto the scene? What is it like to launch from 0 to 120 miles per hour, then rocket 420 feet into the sky? And more to the point, what brought the world’s one-time “tallest, fastest” roller coaster to an unexpected pitstop that many expected to be the final wave of the checkered flag until Cedar Point’s surprising announcements in 2023? “Arms down, head back, and hold on…”
Records Past
To understand Top Thrill Dragster’s pedal-to-the-metal start (and its potential finish), you have to understand the world it was born into. For many of us, the 1990s will forever conjure images of Tamagotchi and Furbies; Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and Beanie Babies; the Slime Geyser outside of Nickelodeon Studios. But when it comes to amusement parks, the 1990s are defined by a singular, global battle for thrill-ride supremacy: the Coaster Wars.
You have to imagine that – before the ‘90s – roller coasters (and amusement parks in general) were only just re-emerging in the public consciousness after a half-century slumber post-Great-Depression. By the ‘70s and ‘80s, new “post-Disney” parks were popping up across the United States, and the “Second Golden Age of the Roller Coaster” has begun, with cutting edge steel roller coasters spreading around the globe.
Of course, the industry was dominated by Arrow Dynamics – a coaster manufacturer whose remaining steel installations are pretty immediately identifiable as… well… “classics.” Arrow’s mine trains, Corkscrews, and multi-loopers still dot the globe, but frankly, each pretty quickly betrays that it was developed in an era before computer simulations. (Unusual banking, ramrod-straight drops, discombobulating forces, and snappy transitions are cornerstones.)
Still, Arrow was the first to crest the 100-foot height barrier (with Cedar Point’s racing Gemini in 1978), then, just a decade later, the 200-foot height barrier. That landmark ride – Cedar Point’s Magnum XL-200 (above) in 1989 – undoubtedly represents a pivot point for the industry. On one hand, Magnum marked the end of Arrow’s industry dominance, and certainly the limits of its height and speed… But on the other hand, the record-breaking thrill machine served as the start of a new era…
Coaster Wars
By the late ‘80s, new players in the coaster manufacturing industry had begun to produce a new generation of steel coasters that read as much more modern builds compared to the herky-jerky Arrow Double Loops of yesteryear.
As the ‘80s gave way to the ‘90s, two narratively-inseparable new industry leaders stepped into the spotlight with precisely-engineered, mathematically-calibrated, and high-octane coasters that became the de facto installations at SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Merlin, Cedar Fair, and Six Flags parks, fueling an era of ravenous expansions based on new-age thrills…
Bolliger & Mabillard
It seems that any self-respecting amusement park in the ‘90s (and unto today) needs a Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) coaster – be it a sitting, hyper, wing, dive, inverted, or even stand-up.
Marked by four-across seating, thick-spined track, cylindrical columns, buttery-smooth transitions, all-new inversions (like cobra rolls, wing-overs, Immelmans, and barrel rolls), and tremendously high capacity, B&M coasters popped up everywhere.
Where Magnum XL-200 had shattered the 200-foot height barrier in ‘89, now B&M churned out 200+ foot “hypercoasters” like an assembly line beginning with 1999’s Apollo’s Chariot and quickly spreading through thrill parks in the 2000s like wildfire. B&M’s thrilling yet crowd-pleasing collection of consistent, quality rides is legendary. (Just one has ever been fully removed – Dueling Dragons at Universal’s Islands of Adventure.)
While some coaster aficionados accuse B&M of churning out a generation of “cookie cutter” clones, B&M has an unrivaled commitment to high-efficiency, high-capacity, and high-reliability. (For example, the firm famously agreed to build the Incredible Hulk Coaster at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, but only if Universal found someone else to develop and install the launch system, preferring to stick to tried-and-true, low-tech, gravity-powered coasters.)
If B&M is the industry’s premier provider of tried-and-true, reliable, and widely-appealing commercial behemoths, that’s a pretty vast divergence from the other ‘90s mainstay…
Intamin
Another Swiss manufacturer, Intamin AG, took a very different path into the Coaster Wars, launching (pun intended) cutting-edge (and often, temperamental) ride systems. In 1997, Intamin developed Superman: The Escape at Six Flags Magic Mountain, using cutting-edge linear synchronous motors (LSM) to send coaster cars screaming down launch track at over 100 miles per hour, then tearing skyward in a 300+ foot vertical climb and backwards fall. Of course, it opened a year after planned, due to technological difficulties.
From there, the company produced a number of its own sitting and inverted coasters, but unlike the swooping, widely-appealing creations of B&M, Intamin’s tend to be more intense, acrobatic, sleek, and serpentine with unique lift and launch systems.
In 1998, the company produced the Lost Legend: Volcano – The Blast Coaster, an inverted, multi-launch ride catapulting riders to 70 miles per hour in seconds, blasting vertically out of a fire-belching peak. (Volcano missed its first summer season, too, and eventually opened by only half-filling trains to ensure the coaster could make it out of the mountain).
Put another way, there was nothing “cookie cutter” about the Intamin that had developed by the mid-’90s, which increasingly was willing to push to boundaries in pursuit of intense, groundbreaking, and monumental new rides… coasters designed for parks that were serious about the Coaster Wars, and about record-breaking, industry-shaking experiences… even if at the cost of efficiency and reliability. For example…
Feel the force
Though Arrow had cracked the glass ceilings of 100- and 200-foot tall coasters in the ‘70s and ‘80s, no one could’ve carried the torch forward but Intamin… and to that point, no park could’ve broken the 300-foot barrier than the one that had broken the other two: Cedar Point.
A one-man army in the Coaster Wars, Cedar Point was practically built to be “America’s Roller Coast.” Situated on a peninsula jutting into Ohio’s Lake Erie, the century-old thrill park began like so many classic American amusements – a Victorian “picnic park” equipped with a Dance Hall, Carousel, and classic Scenic Railway – before the coaster boom of the ‘70s and beyond began its modern transformation.
When Millennium Force opened in 2000, it was unlike anything the world had seen. Cresting 300 feet over Lake Erie (with views of Canada on clear summer days), the blazing blue rails of parabolic airtime hills, slaloming runs, overbanked turns, and relentless, tear-jerking speed, the ride was a force to reckoned with.
And in stark contrast to the analog Magnum, Millennium was all-digital; a streamlined, bold, intense, butter-smooth ride with undulating rainbow lighting, a metallic station, and a looping electronic score. The ride remains the most iconic and beloved of the still-surprisingly-few 300+ foot “gigacoasters” on Earth.
True to its name and to Intamin’s fashion, Millennium Force also had a future-facing element that trusty B&M would never touch. To achieve a steeper-than-normal 45-degree lift hill, it uses a cable-based lift mechanism rather than a standard chain lift and anti-rollback. An elevator cable latches onto the coaster’s train while it’s parked in the station, rapidly and effortlessly pulling it up the 300-foot hill at a brisk 22 feet per second.
The 25-second climb to the ride’s peak may be exhilarating… but it’s got nothing on Intamin’s most breathtaking innovation ever. Read on as we explore the world’s first stratocoaster…
Escalation
There’s probably no single person as inherently tied to the Coaster Wars of the ‘90s and early 2000s as then-CEO of Cedar Fair, Dick Kinzel. Serving as the company’s chief since 1986 (and thus, overseeing the record-breaking developments of both Magnum XL-200 and Millennium Force), Kinzel’s vision for the growing family of Cedar Fair parks was clear: building bigger, taller, and faster.
It makes sense. With B&M and Intamin as weapons dealers in the escalating arms race between regional parks, coaster lineups reaching ten or more coasters became increasingly standard across Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks – each vying for regional “staycation” summer dollars.
For fans across early 2000s discussion boards, speculation ran rampant on what each park would announce next, whether B&M or Intamin reigned supreme, and who would ultimately control the “Roller Coaster Capital of the World” moniker. (With the opening of Millennium Force, Cedar Point offered 14 – the largest coaster collection on Earth, with Six Flags Magic Mountain hot on its tail.)
(It should be noted that Kinzel’s somewhat singular focus on thrills over just about anything else wasn’t without controversy. His extraordinary focus on the Coaster Wars arguably saw Cedar Fair’s legacy parks – and then its acquired parks, like Knott’s Berry Farm, the Paramount Parks, and the Lost Legend: Geauga Lake – develop decades of dependency on “extreme thrills” over just about anything else. Cedar Fair’s legacy parks have zero – zero! – dark rides between them, and ride lineups absent “mid-sized” coasters, flat-rides, or theming are frequent. Only Kinzel’s replacement with former Disneyland President Matt Ouimet in 2013 started to see some family flavor added back into Cedar Fair parks.)
So you can imagine that with Millennium Force paving the way, Cedar Fair was already in discussions with Intamin about what would come next… And though 11 years had separated Cedar Point’s 100-, 200-, and 300-foot installations, the unthinkable 400-foot barrier would be shattered much sooner than anyone thought.
Baby, I’m Ready To Go
In 2002 – just two years after Millennium’s debut – Cedar Point introduced Wicked Twister. The fifth of six Intamin Impulse coasters built between 2000 and 2003, the double-spiked-tower shuttle coaster was a mid-sized, compact addition to the park’s waterfront. Most assumed that the park’s 15th coaster was merely a dessert after the entree of Millennium Force. It turned out, though, that Wicked Twister was actually the appetizer for something bigger.
The same summer that Cedar Point opened Wicked Twister, the company opened Xcelerator at Knott’s Berry Farm – Intamin’s first hydraulic launch coaster.
Rather than the gradual, non-contact, electromagnetic acceleration provided by LIM and LSM technology (like Wicked Twister), Xcelerator used massive hydraulic motors and high-tension cable to instantaneously catapult a train out of the station and up a 205-foot-tall top hat looking out across Buena Park, California. As a prototype of Intamin’s next cutting-edge ride technology, Xcelerator was a success.
So when a few accessory ride relocations, land clearing, and some conspicuous concrete footers appeared along Cedar Point’s midway, message boards were alight with rumors… of course, speculation shifted into overdrive when – on August 21, 2002 – the blazing yellow supports and cherry red track of an Intamin Accelerator model were dropped off at Cedar Point’s front door.
By time the park closed for the season (essentially halting coverage), those pieces had been assembled into the climb into and pull-out of a vertical launch tower just like Xcelerator’s. But without any official word from the park, no one knew exactly what form Cedar Point’s version of a hydraulic launch coaster would take…
Then, on January 9, 2003, it was official. Top Thrill Dragster wouldn’t just give Cedar Point the world’s second hydraulically-launched coaster; it would obliterate the unthinkable 400-foot height barrier, just three years after the world’s first 300-foot full circuit coaster debuted across the park. It seemed absolutely impossible. Yet it was real…
Race for the Sky
Top Thrill Dragster – Cedar Point’s $25 million, record-breaking, cloud-piercing roller coaster – officially opened on May 4, 2003. Only Dragster’s hot-rod-red top hat could best Millennium Force as the icon of Cedar Point’s skyline. From every angle, it’s a landmark; the world’s tallest and fastest roller coaster; the first and only to race past the unthinkable 400-foot height barrier; the apex of the Coaster Wars.
It all begins along the park’s mid-century midway. There – where Arrow’s Corkscrew was the first coaster to feature three inversions, and where Arrow’s Gemini once left riders shook with its 100-foot height – a new, sleek, flag-lined station gives onlookers a glimpse into the eyes of guests as they shuffle into hot rod trains and roll out into the sun and parks before a grandstand of metal bleachers.
There, onlookers await with baited breath and cameras poised to capture the moment… The track hisses as the train rolls back into place… A race light illuminates red… And…
You know, with rides like this, sometimes it’s better not to watch, but to pull off the Band-aid and just get in line. The entrance to Top Thrill Dragster is further up that straightaway, so chances are that you’ll pass directly beneath a train as it accelerates by, peeling up and racing skyward. The queue is simple – a series of switchbacks nestled between the ride’s launch and brake, perhaps making you feel like you’re part of the pit crew.
But as you draw closer and closer to the station, the reality of that number – 120 miles per hour in four seconds – sets in. Sure, you’ve probably been on a launched coaster. It might’ve even been one of the industry’s newer systems, like linear induction motors that use non-contact electromagnetism to attract-and-repel trains through lined electric motors, like the park’s own Wicked Twister. But this is something new entirely.
Sit down. Buckle up. Pull down that lap-bar, all to the tune of Republica’s “Ready To Go.” Once you’re seated, your train rolls out of the station and lumbers to a stop at the starting line. It’s a nail-biting moment, but you won’t want to bite your nails. It could happen at any second. Don’t blink. Don’t breathe. Don’t look to your left or right. Whatever you’re doing when the ride launches, you’ll be stuck doing it down the length of the straightaway. As crowds look on, cameras ready, the brakes hiss and release, the train rolling back a few inches or so.
Underneath, a cable has attached to your dragster’s catch car. The physics and mechanics behind Top Thrill Dragster are incredibly complex, but suffice it to say that this launch system means business. 48,000 pounds of force provided by 32 hydraulic motors power a massive rotating drum that unwinds the launch cable at 9 rotations per second. And that leaves you as the subject of one of the world’s most extraordinary science experiments.
“Arms down, head back, and hold on,” a voice repeats until all riders comply. Then… you wait…
And wait…
And wait…
Eyes darting between the stop light and the tower, waiting for that red light to cascade down into a series of yellows and then, green… When will it happen?
Before you can process, it’s underway. The initial acceleration seems to happen before the sound of the tires can even reach you. Unlike the “gradual” (albeit, very quick) acceleration of electromagnetism, this calculated, synchronous release of the ride’s tension-filled launch cable is instantaneous. In an instant, you’re gone. Within four seconds, the 17 ton train is traveling 120 miles per hour, practically levitating over the track as wind-whipping, chest-pressing pressure bolts riders into their seats. This is the equivalent of jumping to lightspeed; a sustained, steady acceleration you feel in your soul.
The second the launch cable detaches, the train blasts upward, pulling up into a vertical track with a 90-degree spiral twist that aligns riders with the crest of the top hat. The seconds spent here – 420 feet over Lake Erie – make Millennium Force look like a kiddie coaster. But there’s no time to sightsee. Tipping over the top-hats half-way point, the train dives vertically, plunging through a 270-degree spinning spiral (above) before aligning once more with terra firma. The 400 foot, 112 mph plunge at last aligns with a horizontal straightaway, and in a flash, the train careens beneath the Finish Line marquee.
Fom launch to deceleration, Top Thrill Dragster is just 17 seconds of high-octane insanity. And though calmer heads will eventually prevail, in those elated moments when the train pulls into the unload area, you’d be forgiven for believing that that 17 second ride is perhaps the best roller coaster on Earth – an undeniable experience that every thrillseeker should put atop their “bucket lists.”
Top Thrill Dragster was the tallest, fastest roller coaster on Earth – and by nature of its design, a one-of-a-kind ride experience. For that alone, it’s no surprise that the ride earned rave reviews and instantly became a must-ride icon of the Coaster Wars. In other words, it worked. Cedar Point’s record-breaking ride – requiring the invention of the 400-foot “stratocoaster” moniker – was the “Would you or wouldn’t you?” across news stations and water coolers; the coaster equivalent of Survivor.
In fact, about the only person who didn’t want to talk about Top Thrill Dragster was Dick Kinzel. Just as Oppenheimer regretted his role as the “father of the atomic bomb,” Kinzel seemed to have recognized that at his behest, the Coaster Wars had officially gone too far. How so? Read on…
Regrets
In what’s become a calling card for Intamin’s cutting-edge, boundary-pushing, line-toeing rides, Top Thrill Dragster worked like a charm… except when it didn’t.
Just three weeks after opening, on May 26, 2003, the high-tension launch cable that rapidly winds to propel the train came loose, resulting in several days of downtime for the park’s then-signature ride. A week later, a faulty valve in the hydraulic system left the ride closed… for the duration of the international CoasterMania event. The ride was entirely shuttered from June 20 – July 4, due to errors in the hydraulic system, missing Independence Day crowds.
When the ride did work, its trains were modified to include only four of the planned five cars (likely, an effort to lighten the load and more reliably crest the top hat without a rollback) leading to a reported, dismal 800 person per hour capacity. The fifth car was restored to each train in 2003. But that May, each of the fifth cars was modified to remove decorative “dragster” spoilers, engines, and large Goodyear tires – reportedly, after one of the decorative rubber tires flew off of the train while it was running after park closure.
In the ride’s second season – on July 14, 2004 – the cable used to accelerate the train frayed during launch, spraying riders with sheared shards of metal. Four riders experienced cuts to their arms and faces. (The launch cable would also shred and spray the train with metal shrapnel on Xcelerator in 2009 [as seen in an on-ride video that – we warn you – is distressing to watch] and 2013, and again on Dragster in 2016.)
According to Tim O’Brien’s autobiography, Dick Kinzel: Roller Coaster King of Cedar Point Amusement Park, Kinzel called Top Thrill Dragster his “dumbest decision,” admitting that 50% of guests automatically aren’t interested in riding it. More to the point, Kinzel cited Dragster as the highest cost-per-rider in the park to operate, and one of the toughest rides to maintain…
In a 2005 “Motley Fool” segment on NPR, Kinzel called Top Thrill Dragster “the worst business decision” he ever made. Alluding to its runner-up, the Declassified Disaster: Disaster Transport, he stated, “Disaster Transport was sort of a laughing type thing, because the year we put it in we still had a great year financially so we could laugh about it, but with Top Thrill Dragster, that was a $25 million roller coaster. It just hasn’t worked up to our expectations. It’s taken two years. The way I feel right now, the worst decision we ever made was putting that coaster in. But sometimes, you have to roll the dice a little bit.”
A Roll of the Dice
Speaking of betting big on Intamin’s more risky and intense rides, before we rejoin the story of Top Thrill Dragster, a brief aside to explore the continued story of Intamin…
In 2005, Six Flags retaliated in the Coaster Wars with its own Intamin Accelerator – Kingda Ka at its Great Adventure park in New Jersey. Kingda Ka officially captured the record for speed (128 mph) and height (456 feet), besting Dragster by 8 mph and 36 feet, respectively. It remains the tallest coaster on Earth (a fellow Intamin creation – Formula Rossa at Abu Dhabi’s Ferrari World – is faster), but Cedar Point loyalists would insist we add an asterisk to the world’s second of two stratocoasters, reminding you that it’s “just” a Dragster lookalike.
(In true Intamin fashion, Kingda Ka operated for less than three weeks before a shredded launch cable closed the ride for two months of its opening summer; it was closed for three more months after being struck by lightning in 2009 – an incident some expected would ground the troublesome ride permanently.)
Inherent in their push for innovation, Intamin’s had several other high-profile starts and stops over the years. Dragster’s follow-up – 2007’s multi-launch, more-than-vertical, bucking, wild Maverick at Cedar Point – had its opening delayed by weeks when testing revealed that one of the ride’s inversions exerted more forces than expected, necessitating its removal and replacement. (A weirdly amateurish mishap in the age of computer modeling, especially because anyone watching the point-of-view rendering that includes the heartline roll in question could tell you that it looks like it could break a neck.)
In 2010, Intamin produced their second (and to date, final) 300-foot gigacoaster. Located at Kings Dominion in Virginia, Intimidator 305 is best understood as a fusion of Millennium Force (with its iconic first drop and soaring elements) and Maverick (with its slaloming turns, compact layout, and “bucking” directional changes).
But yet again, Intamin failed to predict that that ride’s first manuever – a giant, 270-degree helix entered at 90 mph – would cause discomfort in riders, including frequent G-force-induced grayouts and even blackouts. A stop-gap fix saw brakes installed down the length of the ride’s 300-foot drop during the inaugural season (allegedly reducing the ride’s top speed from 90 mph to 75), and a complete removal and reprofiling of the helix that winter
Just as Intimidator was opening at Kings Dominion, Cedar Point debuted an Intamin-made flume ride called Shoot the Rapids. But in 2013, a boat slid backwards down the ride’s lift, flipping upside down at the bottom and trapping seven riders underwater in over-the-shoulder restraints. (Onlookers who leapt into the flume to right the boat saved all seven lives. Shoot the Rapids closed in 2015.)
Though neither Cedar Fair nor Six Flags has worked with Intamin since, Universal made a high profile gamble on the company with back-to-back installations. The results – Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure and the Jurassic World VelociCoaster – are pretty inarguably the kind of customized, personality-filled, intense, technological, and innovative coasters that scream “Intamin.” But particularly the former (with a record seven launches, hold-less track switch, on-ride audio, and two vertical drop tracks) had a standard Intamin inaugural summer of massive downtime, including nearly daily delayed starts, and entire days of non-operation.
Several notable Intamin rides – like Australia’s Tower of Terror II, Six Flags Magic Mountain’s Green Lantern: First Flight, Kings Dominion’s Lost Legend: Volcano – The Blast Coaster, and Cedar Point’s Wicked Twister have closed in the last five years. Maybe occasional technical difficulties, delayed openings, and unexpected intensity are to be expected when you play with cutting-edge technologies, custom creations, and extreme statistics… but none of it could excuse the event that may be remembered as Dragster’s end.
The Accident
Top Thrill Dragster is certainly unique among coasters for its layout (essentially, an oval) and its queue (which is entirely set inside the ride’s footprint. Guests pass under Dragster’s launch track and into a concrete corral of back-and-forth metal stanchions with the ride zooming past to the east, then returning on the west. If its purpose is to make you feel that you’re a part of the pit crew caught in the action of a high-speed race, it works.
But on August 15, 2021 around 4:30 PM, an L-shaped metal bracket about the size of a hand flew off of the accelerating train as it was launched. Later determined to be a “proximity flag plate” (a sensor attached to the train’s rear left side to communicate its position to the ride’s operation system), that bracket struck a woman in the queue in the head. (Beyond being subjected to a serious brain injury, her family has not shared details about the victim’s state.)
Ohio’s Department of Agriculture (the body responsible for certifying rides at Ohio’s amusement parks and fairs) conducted an investigation not into the cause of the accident, but into whether or not Cedar Point itself had violated state laws in the operation of the ride.
Though Cedar Point conceded that it had not performed its usual “standard overhaul procedure” on the ride in 2021 (since the procedure had been conducted in 2020 when the ride ended up operating only lightly due to COVID-19), the park reported that it had consulted with Intamin to conduct a limited overhaul of the ride.
In February 2022, the Ohio Department of Agriculture concluded that Cedar Point had not violated any rules in its operation or maintenance of the ride, and that – pending repairs and addressing “signs of wear” – Top Thrill Dragster would be cleared to re-open. However, the same day, Cedar Point’s website was updated to state that they had made the decision that Top Thrill Dragster would not operate at all during the 2022 season.
Checkered Flag
Clearly, Top Thrill Dragster didn’t end the Coaster Wars (or to that point, Kinzel’s preoccupation with stuffing Cedar Fair parks with bare steel thrills), but it certainly marked a topping out of the genre. Though Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks continue to prioritize thrill rides (and often invent wildly specific “records” that each installation breaks), the Coaster Wars have cooled… and arguably, that actually lets guests be the priority over marketing bluster and ultra-extreme ride prototypes designed to lure iron-stomached teens at the expense of families.
Don’t misunderstand: Top Thrill Dragster is an absolute icon; a “Bucket List” experience; a record-breaking, must-see, life-changing 17 seconds of adrenaline-packed acceleration that literally defines Cedar Point’s skyline. But it’s also an albatross around the park’s neck. Like any roller coaster, it won’t last forever… Approaching 20 years of technical problems, even ardent fans couldn’t help but wonder if it would be worth bringing the ride out of mothballs in 2023, or if a two decade shelf life is plenty for a ride so defined by wear and tear… What would Cedar Point be without Top Thrill Dragster? It seemed we may find out…
— Cedar Point (@cedarpoint) September 6, 2022
In September 2022 – nearly a year after it had last operated and after a full summer season of standing silently over the park – Cedar Point announced via Twitter that after 18 million riders, “the world’s first strata coaster, as you know it, is being retired.” The statement continued, “Our team is hard at work creating a new and reimagined ride experience.”
Naturally, rumors ran rampant, as the coaster that had captivated the world two decades before became a headline once again. What could a “reimagined” Top Thrill Dragster look like? Would it retain its top speed? Its height? Would Intamin be involved? Would it launch? If so, with the temperamental hydraulics technology, or with more modern, non-contact LSM electromagnetics? If that, then how given the massive power and real estate needed to reach the speeds that could see a train crest its top hat?
Throughout the late autumn and early winter of 2022 / 2023, major construction began around Top Thrill Dragster. For the second time, though, the park’s off-season closure brought coverage of the ride’s (re)construction to a halt. Only occasional aerial imagery (like the photograph above) provided glimpses into the park.
There, the ride’s track wasn’t demolished so much as disassembled. Every horizontal piece of track – including station, launch, and brake section – was entirely dismantled, as well as several concrete footings making up the ride’s former unload area and return to the station. What did it mean? And what was next for the 420-foot-tall top hat itself?
— Cedar Point (@cedarpoint) January 9, 2023
The truth is, we still don’t know. But on January 9, 2023 – four months after the cryptic statement – Cedar Point tweeted a video promising “A new formula for thrills – coming 2024.” Seemingly a reference to Formula One racing (and, perhaps accidentally, to the world’s fastest roller coaster, Intamin’s Formula Rossa in Abu Dhabi), the promotion set the coaster world on fire suggesting that Top Thrill Dragster – or some version of it – would indeed return…
It’s certain that throughout 2023, rumors will continuously grow. Even now, coaster enthusiasts have their suspicions about which manufacturers may be involved in the reformatting of the world’s first stratacoaster, what its final layout may look like, and what statistics it may emerge from its redesign with…
Though it’s clear that Top Thrill Dragster will spend the 2023 season Standing But Not Operating (SBNO), the 400-foot ride – one of just two stratocoasters on Earth – seems to have been granted a second lease on life. Consider it a poetic inversion to the fate of fellow ultra-extreme Coaster Wars behemoth, record-breaker, and Lost Legend: Son of Beast, which was similarly given the green light to re-open after a rider injury, but was kept SBNO in plain sight for years… until it was finally demolished.
Somehow, it seems that Kinzel’s Coaster Wars equivalent of the A-Bomb won’t meet the same fate… but as to what this “new and reimagined ride experience” will entail? Our best advice for now is simple: “Arms down, head back, and hold on…”
