"Dragster" Layout Idea

Being that the idea of this new coaster looks like it is not going to enter the island after the top hat in the Dodge Em zone, I feel that my original thought on the ride layout might actually happen. I was thinking that it would do it's launch from the Troika site and do it's first top hat in the Dodge Em zone. It would then come travel back past the station, near the newly cleared area around Iron Dragon. At that point, it would cross the lagoon and do a rather steep overbanked turn almost back to back with the one on Millennium Force..maybe even overlapping..It would then cross back over the lagoon and do one last overbanked turn across from Corkscrew's station. The difference between this one and the conventional overbank is that it will follow into a wide turn at the bottom which would lead into the brakes. What are your thoughts?

Maybe add some bunny hopes in before each turn.

I was really hoping it'd be longer than that, but all these rumors are starting to show otherwise...... :-(

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Aaron Clark
Clarkbar@neo.rr.com

While you're at it, add some loops and a zero-roll too. :)

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"Sit down right, hold on tight, and enjoy your flight on Shivering Timbers!!"

Even though CP does not like to overlap rides, how about the new ride and MF overlapping on the island? They are both from Intamin... It was just a thought.

I think pretty strongly that if this ride is even close to the layout you're suggesting, it'll have a higher ending speed than the top speed of nearly any coaster in the world.

I don't know about Cedar Point not liking to overlap rides...just look at Mantis and Iron Dragon. Obviously if they want to keep packing the park for space, but still getting quality rides, they have to make some hybrid adjustments. I can easily see #16 getting intertwined with MF.

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Mantis Crew '02 - Where's the unload station at?!? ;-)

I was at The Point this past weekend and I did saw all of the construction equipment on Millennium Island. I believe that CP will have both their record-breaking Intamin rides close to each other. By the way who ever said that CP doesn't like to overlap rides? We don't see it at CP because of the amount of area CP has.

Now that I look back, I forgot to add in the second top hat between the intial one in the Dodge Em area and the cross over the lagoon. So, the second top hat would be where the land has just been cleared near Iron Dragon...That would make the ride go top hat, top hat, overbanked turn, overbanked turn/turn into brakes. Another cool option would be to have the ride go from the first top hat into an overbanked turn by Iron Dragon, then travel back towards the Dodgem zone for a second top hat, run back towards Iron Dragon for a ultra speed helix, cross the lagoon and do an overbanked turn, then cross back over the lagoon for the finish. I say either way, the distance between elements would allow for a much better ride length than accelerator. Imagine the possibility of an overbanked hill, like that one coaster overseas. Could anyone tell me the name of this one?

The possibilty of two tophats has been discussed, and many came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be feasible. Since the tophat is right after the launch, it can fall back down and coast (slowly, I might add) back into the station. If this would happen in between the two tophats you were talking about, it would be very bad if the trains were to valley. It would be bad publicity and would be hectic to get the guests and train off the track.

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June 28th: LocoBazooka Tour (Sevendust headlining)
July 11th: Korn, Puddle of Mudd, and Deadsy

I think it's gonna launch, do a HUGE top hat (that will turn it back to the station), then hit the brakes. Short and sweet.

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CP_bound said:
If this would happen in between the two tophats you were talking about, it would be very bad if the trains were to valley.

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True, but can't this happen between any two hills on any coaster? The threat of not making it over the first tophat has to do with the launch malfunctioning, but after that its all gravity. It's no different than the threat of a valley on, say Millie. The only difference is the slope of the hill.

It's all fun and games, until there turns out not to be any world-famous Intamin banked turns...

-mikey

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Let your mind go...and your body will follow...

Not really Mk468. If the train makes it over the first hill it will be designed to have a high speed for the rest of the ride. So even if it is going slower than normal it would complete the curcuit... Where as if it was planned to be doing 10mph over the top it of a second hill it would have a hard time making the whole course if something effected the ride (EX: wind).

There is a difference...the small radius of a top hat requires a very slow speed in order to keep the G's down. I think there are accounts that Xcelerator's trains can't be going faster than 10 mph over the tophat. Over a parabolic hill like the third hill of MF, it can go over at a fairly high speed without causing too much stress on the riders. The larger radius of the hill accomodates the higher speeds.

If two tophats in a circuit were set up, it would be easy for a train to complete the layout if the 2nd top hat was relatively shorter than the 1st, but there is an ergonomical problem with this because riders can't ride a coaster with too many negative G's.

Strapping someone into Xcelerator when they were testing it at 110mph wouldn't have been a good idea. :) Between a gust of wind and too high of speeds on the 2nd top hat, it just doesn't seem feasible. There are just too many variables to account for in order to construct two tophats on one track.

If they would happen to construct two tophats in the ride, I sure would be interested in seeing what kind of fail safes the ride would have, but I doubt we will see it.

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June 28th: LocoBazooka Tour (Sevendust headlining)
July 11th: Korn, Puddle of Mudd, and Deadsy
*** This post was edited by CP_bound 9/10/2002 8:06:59 PM ***

Wow, sounds like someone finally understands exactly what I meant... Very well put CP Bound, I obviously can't agree with you more. :)

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I'd Rather Be Riding Roller Coasters

It is possible to have more than one top hat if you have say a mid course brake run very high in the air or maybe speed sensitive brakes right before the second top hat or on the up slope of the second top hat. I think it can be done and I'm hoping for a top hat and a TA2K like hill after the top hat. How cool would that be.

Who says we need breaks? Why not just stick a few lims between the top hats to make up for a loss of speed? Wicked Twister has some kind of system that checks the speed as it makes several passes through the lims. In this case, it would be going in a single direction, which would be even less technical then in the Wicked Twister case. I say if they want to do it, they will.

THe whole point of usinc hydraulics to launch the coaster is so that it uses far less power and less time to launch it. It wouldn't be economical to use LIM's to propel the train even faster. Not to mention that the trains would have to have fins on the sides just like Premiere trains making them look bulky instead of streamlined.

I'm aware that this would be a possible solution for something like this, but it just isn't very probable.

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June 28th: LocoBazooka Tour (Sevendust headlining)
July 11th: Korn, Puddle of Mudd, and Deadsy

Let me try this again, sorry if it double posts, I have had frequent problems posting to GTTP, and sometimes even getting to the site. I may have a bad route....A double top hat impossible? Nah, just improbable. Engineers can be pretty tricky, anything can be achieved with the right amount of R&D money. I do not think we will see one for other reasons, but not for any stated here. Granted, the forces would be excessive if a top hat was entered at high speed due to the tight radius, and in the negative direction, which is mostly to be avoided, there are plausible solutions to this problem. One of which is just invert the second top hat to change the direction of the force. But, that would not be a real top hat would it? So what is wrong with a second top hat? I do not believe it is speed. Consider this, speed variance is closely related to distance of track traveled. Let me give an example, the track would be similar to MF, so using the losses from that coaster, the TOTAL time to transverse the track can vary by a considerable amount of seconds and time in coasters is equivalent to speed. However, at the bottom of the first hill, you will always clock the train at 92-93MPH. At most a variance of a couple percent in speed, there is a lot of inertia in a heavy train far more than the losses, but the losses add up over distance.