Volume 1, No. 9. June 1, 2001
It's a slide tower!
Paramount's Carowinds announces the arrival of
Pipeline Peak, May 12, 2001. Measurements: four slides of up to 80 feet
tall (24 meters) and 495 feet long (150 meters). Delivered by ProSlide Technology.
Although its new tower boasts the world's tallest enclosed body slide at 80
feet with Night Slider, Carowinds debuted the complex to the media by
focusing on its two enclosed two-person tube slides, the 45-foot-high (14 meters)
Turbo Twister and 495-foot long Rip Slide. (The fourth slide is
the enclosed body slide Power Plunge).
In a competition titled "Beauty vs. Brawn," the park enlisted the cheerleaders
for the city's two major sports teams, the football Panthers' Top Cats and the
basketball Hornets' Honeybees, and the professional Charlotte Eagles men's soccer
team to race for charity. The relay race featured teams scurrying to the launches,
sliding down to the bottom, handing the rafts off to another pair to race up
for the second slide. Despite a number of hijinks hindering all the competitors,
the competition was weighted in favor of the brawn: literally, the men slid
down faster because they outweighed their female counterparts. That earned the
Eagles a $1,000 check for their chosen charity, whereupon park General Manager
Watt Burns stepped up and offered $1,000 checks to the cheerleading teams, as
well.
The next day proved the park had its own winner. On a perfect, hot waterpark
day, guests lined up at the Pipeline Peak from the moment the gates opened,
and did a daylong relay race of their own: slide down, scurry back to the top,
and ride again.
©2001, Minton Enterprises LLC
All rights reserved