Volume 3, No. 9. May 9, 2003
It’s
420 feet!
Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, announces the arrival of Top Thrill Dragster,
May 4, 2003. Measurements: 420 feet high (128 meters), 2,800 feet (853.5 meters)
of track, 90 degree angle of ascent and descent, 121 mph (195 km/h), six 16-passenger
trains, 20 second ride. Delivered by Intamin.
Many of the comments were unprintable. It’s nigh near impossible for even
the best writers to translate into English or any other language the exhalations
of pent-up fervor emitting from the mouths of the many coaster enthusiasts disembarking
from what is now the world’s tallest and fastest roller coaster.
The general gist of impressions among enthusiasts is that Cedar Point’s
new record-setter didn’t just surpass expectations, it off-the-chart surpassed
expectations. Said Justin Garvanovic, editor of First Drop Magazine:
“I’d have to say this is the best thrill ride anywhere.” That
quote came after a couple of rides and the unprintable type of commentary he
had been offering.
So, the $25 million ride the whole industry has been eyeing this year with a
mixture of awe and trepidation was a huge hit upon its debut, pun intended.
But it’s debut was not nearly as smooth as Top Thrill Dragster itself.
Four hundred and twenty feet may be impressive, but it’s also vulnerable.
Building to that height is hard to do along Lake Erie’s windy coastline.
On top of that, Dragster was constructed during one of Ohio’s harshest
winters ever. “We’re in the shape we’re in today because we planned
on having a bad winter, but the winter lowered the boom, really hammered us,”
said Monty Jasper, the park’s vice president of maintenance and construction.
“We started testing on March 1, and we needed every moment all the way
up to yesterday.”
Cedar Point personnel didn’t get their first rides on Dragster until
just a couple of days before the scheduled media preview. That was a little
close for comfort, but that ride at least bolstered confidence in Top Thrill
Dragster’s potential impact. “When we rode it the other day, the
management team was just screaming,” said Bill Spehn, vice president of
operations. “We were excited about the experience, and we’re a pretty
hard group sometimes to say that.”
The
weather continued hounding Dragster right up to its debut. The night
before that Thursday’s media preview a lightning strike knocked out one
of the computer control components. The morning of the media event thunderstorms
in the area shut Dragster down, canceling live morning show broadcasts.
Then, what Spehn called “Cedar Point pixie dust” came into play just
before the scheduled opening ceremony; the sun pierced the cloud cover. By mid
morning the sky was clear blue, despite radar showing a band of thunderstorms
marching through much of the region. The skies above Cedar Point stayed brilliant
until the media day concluded at 7 p.m. (19,00) when stormy weather quickly
reasserted itself.
Given the delay in live TV and radio rides among the 800 media members in attendance,
and given the temperament typical of a just-completed high-tech ride, Top
Thrill Dragster’s operations were far from smooth on media day. Many
reporters and guests waited up to four hours to get on. One train rolled back
into the launch area after failing to make the ascent, a roll back cheered heartily
by the enthusiasts on board at the time (who were regarded with envied by those
watching). The park ran only five of the trains, and those were missing one
car each, carrying only 10 passengers per trip. “We never start at full
capacity,” Jasper said. “We’re a conservative company. We don’t
want to dance headlong into some problem.”
That conservative tendency continued when the ride opened to the general public
for the first time on Sunday still using the four-car, five-train operation.
From the moment the park’s gates opened and the first guests had sprinted
down the midway to Dragster’s entrance, the queue extended to a
four-hour wait, said Robin Innes, Cedar Point’s director of public relations.
That was in part due to the first several trains carrying the 96 winners of
Cedar Point’s traditional first-ride auction to raise money for the local
chapter of the Red Cross. The auction tallied a total of $35,000 with top bidders—and
first-train front seat riders—13-year-old David Lutz and his father Charles
Lutz of Orchard Park, New York, bidding, respectively, $1,504 and $1,503 to
ride together.
Spehn likes to call Top Thrill Dragster the culmination of a “two-three-four”
punch: Magnum XL the first full-circuit coaster to surpass 200 feet in
1989, Millennium Force the first to surpass 300 feet in 2000, and now
Dragster the first to surpass 400 feet. “It’s not an ego thing,
it’s a business decision,” said Cedar Fair CEO Dick Kinzel of Cedar
Point’s ongoing drive to remain head-and-shoulders above the competition.
“It’s fun, it’s great for the ego, but you can’t put ego
over what’s good for business.” But, he admitted, 420 feet is mostly
about ego. “I wouldn’t be honest with you if I didn’t tell you
we could have made this at 360 or something,” he said. “But certainly
there was magic in going four, and then we knew that a park in California had
something a little over four, so, obviously, we designed it to go at least over
whatever the competition was.”
Nevertheless, what happens way up there is not nearly as important as what happens
on the ground. The most magical moment of media day came at the end when Spehn
told Dragster’s operators they could ride the coaster. When the
train filled with young Cedar Point employees moved into the launch area along
the midway and in front of a grandstand, the remaining enthusiasts and reporters
strolled alongside, shouting encouragement to the riders and trying to get them
to raise their arms (they did not). The train suddenly sped off, reaching 121
mph in four seconds. The enthusiasts all cheered—for the ride and the people
who run it.
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
©2003, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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