Volume 1, No. 17. September 21, 2001
(Photo of GM John Odom riding Georgia's Deja Vu. Photo courtesy of Six Flags Over Georgia)
It's a roller
coaster!
Six Flags Over Georgia in Atlanta
announces the arrival of Déjà Vu September 1, 2001. Measurements:
196 feet high (59 meters), 1,204 feet of track (365 meters), 90 degree first
drop. Delivered by Vekoma.
Working out the kinks and getting the ride ready for public consumption may
have taken all season, and the park may have ached that a ride scheduled for
a late spring opening lay enticingly dormant throughout the summer. Still, in
the end the new-generation boomerang's opening gave Six Flags a big publicity
boost heading into the weekends-only fall season.
"We were very pleased with the media coverage," said Marcie Tanner, the park's
public relations manager. Some 120 members of the media from as far afield as
Alabama, Tennessee and southern Georgia and broadcasting even further afield
through Fox News and CNN Radio International joined about 50 members of American
Coaster Enthusiasts for the August 30 media preview. The news signaled for the
general public, which had eagerly anticipated the ride, a reason to get out
to the park early on Saturday two days later.
"There were quite a lot of people waiting in line to ride it when it first opened
up," Tanner said of the rush from the front gate to the coaster. "And it continues
to be that way. We were very open with the fact it wasn't opening when we hoped
it would. We had been building up to this ride for so long and people wanted
to come out and try it."
And try it again and again and again. The first riders, Sam and Robert Ulrich,
the father/son coaster gurus, spent every possible minute of media day riding
Déjà Vu, and Robert proclaimed it one of the best of some
300 different coasters he's ridden around the world. In Tanner's own estimation,
Déjà Vu immediately earned status as best ride in the park.
"It over delivered. You look at this ride from the ground, and you think it's
a good ride. You get on it and you realize how intense it is. It is so much
different than any other boomerang: that 90 degrees straight down at almost
200 feet in the air is one of the most unique and intense ride experiences ever."
Aside from its intensity, Vekoma introduces a clever seating arrangement with
the inverted coaster, wherein the four-abreast seats are arranged in a V-shape
with the two interior seats positioned forward of the two outer seats. It thus
gives every rider an unrestricted side view and open-air feeling.