Loop 034 printable

Volume 2, No. 10. June 14, 2002

Monday: Dips 100
Even Bill Linkenheimer, president of the American Coaster Enthusiasts, was impressed with the plaque designating Lakemont Park’s Leap the Dips an ACE Roller Coaster Landmark. “I was shocked to see how much bigger it was than the National Historic Landmark,” he said after presiding over the May 27 ceremony awarding the Altoona, Pennsylvania, amusement park the first such award from ACE.

“The purpose is to recognize historically significant roller coasters,” Linkenheimer said of his organization’s new program. A departure from ACE’s “classic coaster” designation, which is given to traditional woodies meeting strict criteria, the ACE Roller Coaster Landmark is open to any type of coaster. “Other than for ‘historically significant coaster,’ there is no criteria,” Linkenheimer said.

Two more such awards will be given this year. This weekend the annual ACE Coaster Convention kicks off at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, with the unveiling of a Landmark plaque at the Revolution. “It is the first modern looping coaster and inspired the wave of looping steel coasters that continues to this day, and it’s been used in a lot of motion pictures,” Linkenheimer said. Later in June the Cyclone at Coney Island will be recognized. “It’s the granddaddy of roller coasters, a design copied by a lot of twister coasters, it’s been used in a lot of movies, advertisements and music videos, and it's historical in that it’s been preserved just blocks away from where the first coaster in the country stood.”

Leap the Dips is the world’s oldest working roller coaster, and the ACE Landmark designation came as part of the ride’s 100th anniversary. In unveiling the plaque, ACE donated $5,000 to the Leap the Dips Preservation Foundation and hosted an auction of 80 items from the Lakemont Park Historical Museum Society, which raised another $1,700 for the fund.

The Landmark designation derives out of ACE’s primary mission of preserving roller coasters. The organization has budgeted for three such designations a year, “but that could always change,” Linkenheimer said. The designation could also be given to a coaster outside North America. ACE Historian Richard Munsch and Preservation Director Matt Crowther recommend recipients to the ACE’s executive committee, which must approve a coaster by majority vote.

“I’m guessing in our fall meeting we’ll decide on coasters for next year,” Linkenheimer said. “It takes at least a month to make the plaque.”