8 Months Later ...

Actually you were pretty much dead on!

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Cedar Point 2003, where no roller coaster rider has gone before

Was it originally S&S who prototyped that type of ride? I'd swear I had seen a show where they were making a small version of that in the middle of nowhere somewhere? They were referring to it as a "cartoon coaster"?? Am I loosin it?

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... Ahhhh... Dangling feet, Sun in my face, and wind in my hair .... Bliss!

S&S built a similar ride conceptually, only the launch mechanism is more like that used in their tower rides (like Power Tower).

Two have been produced: Hypersonic and Dodonpa.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP - Sillynonsense.com Rave Cam 1/18
DELETED!

Ok now Jeff, please correct me if im wrong but my understanding is that this ride was first presented to S&S and then later the plans were scrapped. So Intamin came on call for the project and decided that they were going to try out a few new concepts at a lower scale. Thus the birth of Xcellerator. If you can also remember Xcellerator was tested up to 117 MPH, which was definitely a test for the capabilities of this kind of system. So now that these things had been tested, such as design and new systems. The birth of Dragster is a reality. Please tell me how correct this is, and if not please give us a nice story on the birth of the Dragster project.

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I Feel The Need, The Need For Speed - Top Gun

How should I know? I don't work for the park.

However, if they decided to go with such a ride starting in 2000, as all of the various interviews seem to indicate, they could have had their choice. The prototype for the S&S ride was I believe running in Utah at that point.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP - Sillynonsense.com Rave Cam 1/18
DELETED!