Dragster Roll Back 7/23/05

Hey. I was at the point this weekend (Friday-Sunday) on Saturday as I was ending my ride on Maggie my girlfriend pointed out that Dragster had rolled back. After we got off we walked towards the entrance to see yet ANOTHER...ROLL BACK. Finally the group made it over on the 3rd launch. I have a question....How come sometimes (now most of the time) Dragster rolls back. Is it due to weight on the train, speed, or the ride its self. Thanks for the help...

Dont Stop Believe'n

Journey

You know you could just post a trip report with all this stuff...

And Dragster rolls back 10 times less this year than it did in the last couple.
*** Edited 7/24/2005 11:30:30 PM UTC by Race for the Fry***

I was waitin for the front seat when it happened and I asked one of the operaters why it happens, and he said they have no control over the rollback. He said it is usually caused from people that got off the train.

I cause them.

The Lemon Chilll worker told me that they have a switch in the control tower. Every now and then when they're bored, they launch it .5 mph slower and it rolls back.

*nods head*

That *nods head* really gave me the assurance that I needed ;), thanks for clearing that up GeeForce.

*** Edited 7/25/2005 2:41:49 AM UTC by Vince982***

^Exactly, had you put *gives a thumbs up*, I'd be a bit skeptical.

-S. Eagle

Hey Ryan most roll backs occur when there is a empty seat. When the train gets back and the ride host check on everyone if someone gets off and they dont fill the seat or seats the chances of it happening again are greater those people are very lucky to get one but two in a row darn them

I thought it had to do with the wind at the top.

3 launches, that would be awesome!

It's called momentum. The more weight there is on the train, the more likely your chanes are of making it over the hill. As a train gets heavier, and moves at high speeds, the harder it is for gravity to pull the train back down. For example, if someone threw something like lets say a wiffle ball at you, all that would happen is it would hit you and bounce off. A wiffle ball ways like...idk how much but its really light. Now say you stood in the street and you see a car coming. You keep standing there, and eventually the car will run you over. The reason that happened is because the car has lots of momentum and is not easy to stop moving by another force. Therefore, a heavier train on Top Thrill Dragster will be more difficult to stop by the force of gravity. Everyone got it? Simple physics. It's not that hard to figure out.

Sometimes it does raptorqueen.

And its not an empty seat, it's just a difference in weight. Sometimes a train will go over with a whole car empty and can even rollback with a full train. So weight is one of the biggest rollback factors(there are more).
But in any case, you just have to be lucky....really lucky if you wish to get one.

Hay guysz I heard the train explodes if it rolls back. confirm/deny?

-Josh

Jethro said:
It's called momentum. The more weight there is on the train, the more likely your chanes are of making it over the hill. As a train gets heavier, and moves at high speeds, the harder it is for gravity to pull the train back down. For example, if someone threw something like lets say a wiffle ball at you, all that would happen is it would hit you and bounce off. A wiffle ball ways like...idk how much but its really light. Now say you stood in the street and you see a car coming. You keep standing there, and eventually the car will run you over. The reason that happened is because the car has lots of momentum and is not easy to stop moving by another force. Therefore, a heavier train on Top Thrill Dragster will be more difficult to stop by the force of gravity. Everyone got it? Simple physics. It's not that hard to figure out.

Doesn't gravity exert the same amount of force on an object reguardless of size? For example, if you shot a wiffle ball and a car up to the same hight, they'd fall and hit the ground at the same time. Also, with a heavier train you have more friction, which takes energy away from the train. Another thing, the lighter the train is the faster it would launch, right? The same amount of force acted upon it will make a lighter train go faster then a heavier train. Think about it, is there a difference in how far a wiffle ball would go if you through it with all your strength then if you threw a car?

I could be way offbase here, but it seems logical to me. Then again I havn't had physics since 9th grade (gonna be in 12th)

No no no! Y'all are wrong! The Lemon Chill guy has the controls to the rollback switch! He told me himself!

*nods head*

Boris the Spider said:
Doesn't gravity exert the same amount of force on an object reguardless of size? For example, if you shot a wiffle ball and a car up to the same hight, they'd fall and hit the ground at the same time.

In a vacuum, this would be true. In a real world scenario, something's going to hit the ground before the other one. The reasoning is because air drags on different things in different ways.

Now, the real debate here is...which one? (no cheating and asking RideMan)

-Josh

It would depend on how that wiffle ball is falling. If its slots down, it's going to generate a heck of a lot of drag. If its slots up, then I could see the drag being minimal.

I've always wanted to experiment with an entire Dragster train. If everyone throws up their arms right at launch, can enough resistance be generated to cause a rollback? It would be interesting to try.

Yes, there is drag from air, but to be practical it's not that big of a consideration. Gravity still pulls everything at the same rate. A heavier train is NOT more likely to clear the top. The amount of energy put into the train determines whether or not it will clear it, not the weight. You know the drill about kinetic energy to potential energy, then reverse.

e x i t english said:

In a vacuum, this would be true. In a real world scenario, something's going to hit the ground before the other one. The reasoning is because air drags on different things in different ways.

Now, the real debate here is...which one? (no cheating and asking RideMan)

-Josh

Yeah, but I was saying that under the assumption that they have the same air resistance. I thought about that after I posted, but I figured my point had been made so there was no need to edit. But just to make sure, everything I said in my previous post is in a frictionless (and air resistanceless) environment.

Guys, it's really simple. If you want a rollback, you just tell everyone on the train that when they get near the top to think backwards. I have it on good authority that this ALWAYS works.

*nods head and winks*

*** Edited 7/25/2005 8:05:52 PM UTC by peacetrain***

steve420 said:
I was waitin for the front seat when it happened and I asked one of the operaters why it happens, and he said they have no control over the rollback. He said it is usually caused from people that got off the train.

That can't be the issue because the train is weighed in the launch block (almost sure of this), then it rolls back slightly into the launch dog (I think that's what it's called).