Volume 1, No. 15. August 24, 2001
New Arrivals
PHOTO
of riders preparing to launch on VertiGo at Cedar Point. Photo
by Dan Feicht/Cedar Point
It's
a launch ride!
Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio,
announces the arrival of VertiGo, August 11, 2001. Measurements: six
seats on a triangular carriage, three 265-foot-tall towers (80 meters), a flight
of almost 300 feet up (91 meters). Delivered by S&S Power.
One minute children are trundling around a kiddie go-kart track, the next minute
adults are somersaulting 300 feet in the air. That's the way it seemed to Cedar
Point's Challenge Park guests as S&S' newest thrill ride debuted at the end
of the summer season in a spot where the kiddie go-kart track started the season.
Construction on the prototype ride broke ground July 2, and 40 days later at
6:45 p.m. on a Saturday the first park guest paid $10 to ride the air-launched
platform to sub-heaven.
Like other late-season additions around the industry, this one had no grand
opening ceremony. "I said, 'Hey, we're open,' and they started selling tickets,"
said Bill Spehn, Cedar Point's director of park operations. Nevertheless, the
crowds came. Though the reservation schedule was padded to allow operators time
to get accustomed to the routine, VertiGo saw steady business on its
first night.
VertiGo also passed its most important test that night as an up-charge
attraction: guests came back. Spehn, watching the opening evening operations,
noticed a well-to-do gentleman ride it, return later to ride with his teen-age
daughter, then the two of them returned later with a younger daughter "just
barely meeting the 52-inch restriction," Spehn said, and all three rode it together.
The ride is designed to inspire return visits in that it can be configured to
take four different attitudes as it ascends and descends: remain upright throughout
the ride (called "Hot Rocket"), ride upright to the climax, tilt forward 150
degree and nose-dive back to earth ("Cosmic Flip"), tilt forward immediately
after launch and fly nose down up and back ("Big Bang"), and fly nose down to
the climax where you turn upright "and you're able to see your kingdom, the
peninsula, all of mother earth," Spehn said. That last one is called "Big Bang
Plus."
Spehn and Cedar Point GM Dan Keller were the first non S&S riders to take VertiGo
a couple of days before it opened. "You launch up in this thing, and there's
restraint but you're wide open," he said. "And you are free. It's like you decided
to get out of your seat in an airplane and just hang there for a second. After
the ride you get off it, high-five each other and buy the video."