National Roller Coaster Day: 2018's biggest new coasters
There is only one way to mark National Roller Coaster Day on August 16: Visit an amusement park and ride the rails. But you wouldn’t want to ride just any coaster, right? Fortunately, parks have introduced an especially strong lineup of new thrill machines to sample this year. Let’s run down some of the most noteworthy members of the coaster class of 2018. Braving any one of them would commemorate the day in style (and give you a satisfying rush of adrenaline).
First up is Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. It’s not a completely new attraction, exactly. Formerly known as Mean Streak, the surgical specialists at the ride company, Rocky Mountain Construction (RMC), performed a track replacement by yanking out the traditional tracks of the tired, older wooden coaster and implanting its snazzy, patented steel IBox rails. It also re-profiled the hulking structure to make it taller and faster and added train-turning (and stomach-churning) inversions. In doing so, RMC resuscitated and transformed the rough ride into a super-smooth, wooden-steel hybrid coaster gem. It’s not just the best new coaster of 2018. It's one of the best coasters, period.
Old-timey Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, is sending guests back to an earlier era on its wildly innovative (and just plain wild) Time Traveler. The $26-million attraction uses an ingenious magnetic system to temper the intensity of its free-spinning cars. That allows the coaster to deliver rides that are surprising, unique, and thrilling, but remain controlled and comfortable. Toss in a 100-foot, 90-degree drop right out of the station, two giddy, mid-course launches, and three inversions, and it’s clear that Time Traveler is a ride for the ages.
RMC built two new steel coasters in 2018 using its IBox track. But instead of a typical two-rail design, the ride innovators introduced a groundbreaking single-rail concept. First out of the station was Wonder Woman: Golden Lasso Coaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio. I was lucky enough to be the first to put the superhero-themed attraction through its paces and enjoyed its singular, captivating ride experience. It offers an onslaught of disorienting inversions and other elements, yet it remains remarkably smooth. The essentially similar RailBlazer single-rail coaster at California’s Great America in Santa Clara also opened this year.
Down the California coast in Buena Park, Knott's Berry Farm opened the state’s first dive coaster, HangTime. It climbs a 150-foot vertical lift hall, stalls and halts at the top for a nerve-wracking seven seconds, and dives down a beyond-vertical drop at 96 degrees (making it California's steepest coaster). The surfing-themed ride then smoothly sails through five gnarly inversions.
The RMC folks were especially busy this year and knocked out two more wooden-steel hybrids. Neither of them is as tall, fast, or long as Steel Vengeance, but they do follow the ride company’s playbook of converting rough woodies into suavely smooth and engaging coasters. Twisted Cyclone at Six Flags Over Georgia in Austell features a steep 75-foot drop, three inversions, and 10 airtime moments, while Twisted Timbers at Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia, subjects passengers to a 109-foot-tall barrel roll drop and 20 airtime hills.
It’s not going to get pulses racing nearly as ferociously as any of the other 2018 rides on the list, but Slinky Dog Dash at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, part of Florida’s Walt Disney World, wins the prize for the cutest coaster. The signature new attraction at the park’s new Toy Story Land, the family ride welcomes passengers as short as 38 inches. The dual-launched coaster packs a surprising punch that should delight riders of all ages, but not intimidate the youngest ones.