The Thrill Isn't Gone
There is a tense silence between the reassuring click of the restraint bar that pins riders into their seats and the ominous pfffft of the pneumatic launch mechanism engaging. In that brief interval, as passengers scan the steel track looming ahead, the anticipation is nearly unbearable. Suddenly, they rocket forward, slammed into the back of their seats as the coaster accelerates to 120 miles per hour in four seconds. Even drawing in enough breath to scream takes effort, as the train snakes up a 90-degree incline to a height of 420 feet, equivalent to 42 stories. There is a brief moment of zero gravity as the cars crest the loop, gliding past a flashing beacon installed to deter wayward airplanes. Riders clinch their hands as they plummet, twisting 270 degrees. And then, less than half a minute after hurtling out of the station, the train slowly glides back in, the restraining bar unlatches, and the ride is over.
The Top Thrill Dragster, just two years ago the fastest and tallest roller coaster ever, is the crown jewel of Cedar Point, in Sandusky, Ohio. The 364-acre park by the shores of Lake Erie boasts 16 coasters, both wooden and steel. And while the midway and the bumper cars draw crowds, for coaster buffs who seek out the latest machines with an almost religious fervor, the park is a thrill-ride nirvana.
America's obsession with the roller coaster has had its, well, ups and downs. The rides date back to the ice slides in czarist Russia, when people would careen down steep frozen water tracks on wooden sleds. The modern contraptions owe more to mining trains that carried their cargo along steep and winding skeletal rails--an ancestry visible today in the many mine-themed rides around the country. The first true scream machine, the undulating, 6-mile-per-hour Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway, opened on Coney Island in 1884. Tame by today's standards, it nonetheless launched an amusement park arms race for the fastest, tallest, and most stomach-turning coaster experience. Coaster mania, which slowed to a near standstill as the park industry disintegrated during the Depression, didn't pick up again until franchise amusement parks and a new generation of powerful steel coasters emerged in the 1970s.
Today, the contest for most terrifying ride is being played out with new hypercoasters like the Top Thrill Dragster and Six Flags' Kingda Ka, which is a few feet taller and a few miles per hour faster. Both are twice the height of the tallest coasters constructed 15 years ago, when the structures topped out at about 200 feet. Competition for the next record-breaking coaster is so fierce, officials are loath to reveal details about future rides, fearing that another park will snatch the record and the long lines of riders that accompany it. Insiders say the 500-foot barrier, roughly 47 stories, will be the next peak to reach, provided a park can shell out the millions needed to build it.
Amusement-park attendance has increased steadily over the past few years, and coasters, whatever their age, are still drawing adrenaline junkies. While many of the grand old trains, like Coney Island's Thunderbolt, which ran from 1925 until 2000, have tumbled under the wrecking ball, the survivors still draw crowds--and not just for the nostalgia. "If a park keeps an old coaster, then you know it can still scare you," says Georgann Hallenbrook, 48, a member of the "Coaster Zombies" enthusiast club. In the end, a good coaster isn't measured just by acceleration and raw power. Rather, it's the design of the track, the surprising turns, and the "decapitation moments" when the speeding train appears destined to crash, only to plunge into a dip at the last second. Says Bill Ollio, 47, an aficionado who has ridden hundreds of coasters: "You work hard all week, but when you get on a coaster, all you can think about is the next dip. There's nothing else."
LOCAL FAVE
"My first ride on Superman at Six Flags New England blew me away. I felt out of control. It's a coaster that combines high speed, quick turns, and so many moments of negative gravity that I was off my seat more than I was sitting down. I was surprised, thrilled, and entertained."
PAUL RUBEN, a 68-year-old coaster historian who's traveled more than 9,000 miles of track.
This story appears in the July 4, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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