Top Thrill Dragster 2022 Status

So Magnum is 205' but only has a drop of 194'. What does it make it? Is it the drop? CCMR has a short drop off the crest. What are the rules?

Is everyone forgetting that Pantheon’s and Tautatis’ highest points are the vertical spikes and yet they still boost the train through the final pass to get over the hill? That means New Dragster’s spike can be the tallest feature of the ride still.

“150 feet tall” “200 feet tall” “420 feet tall”. That to me is how to describe something’s height. Nuff said, right?
I have trouble when a park says World’s Tallest Coaster then build something where the train goes nowhere near. Magnum XL200 may be 200 feet tall as its name suggests, and I’m not going to fault it because its wheels don’t smack the ground. Orion is a fantastic ride, and its drop may be 300 but its height isn’t.
I’d like to think that Cedar Point is smarter than to build a ride with questionable statistics but they’re the ones whose had the audacity to install a Disk’O and call it a coaster, lol.
Remember- it’s all show business and there’s a sucker born every minute.

Watched a new vid on YouTube which brings up a great point. This spike could be over 500 ft and have elements at that height, as evidenced by the second foundation near coasters, similar to the tree on Cheetah Hunt. Their idea was a reverse launch up the spike through the element then Back down to a bunny hop into the top hat.

Vid was by Station Wait. His premise is everything we think about LSMs is wrong and they are more powerful than we say.

Just one observation from me…

I have absolutely no interest in any kind of backwards launch. None whatsoever. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. The stronger such a launch might be, the less interested I would be.

Why don’t I want to see any kind of reverse launch?

Hint: consider what you should know about me going back to circa 1991, and my distaste for what they are doing to Montezooma’s Revenge…

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

Briella:

Vid was by Station Wait.

It seems unwise to take a video titled "EVERYONE IS WRONG ABOUT DRAGSTER!!! (AND I CAN PROVE IT)" seriously.

Not saying he's wrong, but serious people making good faith claims don't use absolutes. Internet trolls do.

EDIT: Having watched the video... This very serious internet person thinks they will launch the trains backwards at nearly double the acceleration of TTD's original launch (2.5g vs ~1.4g), up a ~550 rear spike. I'm... skeptical, but then again I am not addicted to methamphetamine, so what do I know?

RideMan:

consider what you should know about me going back to circa 1991

There's a lot of things about me you don't know anything about. Things you wouldn't understand, things you couldn't understand, things you shouldn't understand. ;)

djDaemon:

I doubt it's even possible to reprofile flat track into curved track, to say nothing of being cost effective, given all the weldments.

You raised a really good point (which I did not consider). Any kind of speed bump would make it unnecessary to remove the entire old launch track and ship it to Italy. If in fact, all, or virtually all, of the launch and brake track went out, it highly suggests those basic profiles remain unaltered.

I suppose it's possible you might fit in a speed bump in track by the station and toward a reverse spike (if there is a switch track and the station track is moved (not there is much room for that)), but I strongly doubt there is sufficient track space for that. After all, this is a "bunny hill" taken at over 100 mph, and therefore its radius/ curvature would need to be super extended.

SRE123:

Is everyone forgetting that Pantheon’s and Tautatis’ highest points are the vertical spikes and yet they still boost the train through the final pass to get over the hill? That means New Dragster’s spike can be the tallest feature of the ride still.

I was! Does anyone know the relative height of Pantheon's spike versus the top hat hill (my lazy google search indicated the spike might be 178 ft and the top hat being 160 ft, but with a ~180 drop due to elevation change?). That said, none of the coaster cars reach 178 ft and the majority of the coaster cars substantially lower.

But point well taken, IF they follow the Intamin swing launch model, there is a chance the reverse spike is higher than 420ft. I'm not sure that's the best use of resources.... but it ain't my money or my design.

If I were in charge (and I should be), I would reverse the direction of the ride: I would LSM launch it down the former brake run over the 420 top hat, then boost LSM launch it at it came down the former launch track and have it traverse a 500 ft. top hat where the apparent reverse spike is and use the vacated midfield/ former line area for the new brake run. IF they in fact are building a LSM launch and a reverse spike approximating even 400 ft., the incremental cost of completing a 500 ft. top hat may actually be worth the impact of that type of ride. And it's hard to envision an "easier" way to surmount the 500 ft barrier than having a prexisting 420 ft. hill. Then again, these records may not be of the same interest anymore.

Double top hat!1!11!!!!

If the objective is to get a train over the 420' tophat using LSM's, a "spike" isn't necessary at all. You just need a longer track. And you don't need to go in reverse either, you can just make the oval longer. Not saying this is what's going on, but as usual, there are a lot of things being tossed around as fact without critical thinking.

i dont think a spike is necessary, but it makes sense to me for CP to improve and extend the ride experience in addition to installing a safer and more reliable (but less intense) launch mechanism.

With a spike, they can extend the ride experience such that it isnt a 17 second one-trick pony, and everyone gets a much-coveted rollback, and they can do so with a minimal increase in footprint.

The construction evidence at this point, though obviously inconclusive, seems to strongly imply a rear spike.

As far as height goes, i get that management has moved away from records in favor of overall guest experience.

However, i wouldn't be a bit surprised if they figure that the incremental cost of adding another 70-ish feet on top of, say, a 430 foot spike to hit the 500 foot mark might be worth it in terms of free media coverage and word of mouth, similar to the calculus behind Magnum's increase above the initial proposal to break 200.

About the hypothesized need for a speed reduction for the trip over the tower after reversing up 500 feet, i would think that friction and drag etc might render this unnecessary, especially if they plan to clear the tower at higher speed than TTD OG to give an airtime pop or something, and if a speed trim is necessary i would think that this could be achieved very subtly via the lengthy trip through a long LSM run.

So a detail I haven’t really seen discussed. Assuming we are getting the reverse spike based on the presumed footer we are seeing. The next bit of updating to seriously consider is the train. I think it is pretty solid that we will get new trains. Do yall think they will go to OTS or stay with lap bar only?

DA20Pilot:

With a spike, they can extend the ride experience such that it isnt a 17 second one-trick pony, and everyone gets a much-coveted rollback, and they can do so with a minimal increase in footprint.

I mean, because there's been barely any interest in the ride in the last two decades?

DA20Pilot:

However, i wouldn't be a bit surprised if they figure that the incremental cost of adding another 70-ish feet on top of, say, a 430 foot spike to hit the 500 foot mark might be worth it in terms of free media coverage and word of mouth, similar to the calculus behind Magnum's increase above the initial proposal to break 200.

This is not a good comparison. Increasing Magnum's height by 2.5% is a hell of a lot easier than increasing a design more than 4 times as much (9.5%), and especially so when you're talking about the absolute height being more than twice as tall. And can the increase in cost be justified in terms of ROI? I am doubtful.

SpeedDemon:
Do yall think they will go to OTS or stay with lap bar only?

OTS lap bar. "Probably" something "like" this:

The comparison was Incremental cost increase vs publicity benefits, which I think is a valid comparison.

Besides, I think the cost of increasing a vertical spike height by a given percentage would be less than the cost of increasing a traditional lift hill like Magnum's as there is a lot less metal support structure and associated labor involved.

And Jeff, I don't think a past ride's popularity precludes improvement, especially when you're tearing half of it up already anyway. Would they still have a world class attraction that made thrill seekers happy if all they did was reopen it with an LSM conversion? Sure, but this industry is still about periodic new and improved attractions, whether they be restaurants or boardwalks or thrill rides. And it seems pretty likely based on construction evidence that something is going on with TTD beyond just an LSM conversion. The thrill seeker demo is still a important segment of CPs target market, and when the new TTD opens in 2024 it will be 6 years since the last major coaster install.

I was in the camp of LSM conversion and retention of the same layout as being the far more likely scenario prior to what appears to be a large footer in that particular location, but now it appears that "reimagining" is larger in scope than the prior prevailing conventional wisdom amongst the dominant personalities around here. So I think it is entirely within the realm of realistic possibility that they take this opportunity to swing for the fences and provide a truly new and improved ride experience and generate a good bit more hype than simply bringing back an old ride with new guts.

Well written reply

DA20Pilot:

The comparison was Incremental cost increase vs publicity benefits, which I think is a valid comparison.

When Dragster reopens, even if it reopened with the only change being an LSM launch, there would be publicity. If it were to reopen with an LSM launch and a 500' spike, it would generate more publicity, sure. But would that publicity translate into turnstile clicks that justify several million dollars in additional cap ex? That's what I'm skeptical of.

Thrill seekers and enthusiasts are gonna show up no matter what, even if the only change were new trains. Sure, maybe breaking the 500' barrier would bring in a few more outside the region, but I don't see how it would draw more than an infinitesimal number of additional guests in.

This is why I'm skeptical, and meaningless terms like "world class" and especially "hype" do little to convince me, personally. It's of course possible I'm wrong and there are reams of data supporting the idea that it makes financial sense to "swing for the fences" on a 500' spike. But we don't have that data, so I'll stick with my prior that CP, being a regional attraction, would find it difficult to justify something of that scope.

Jeff:

If the objective is to get a train over the 420' tophat using LSM's, a "spike" isn't necessary at all. You just need a longer track. And you don't need to go in reverse either, you can just make the oval longer. Not saying this is what's going on, but as usual, there are a lot of things being tossed around as fact without critical thinking.

Have you noticed the work going on behind dragsters launch? Thats why we are assuming a spike.

Brandon, Cedar Fair is spending $200M in annual CapEx across its parks as of 2023, and I postulate that this is because spending millions on new and improved attractions (including ~ $25M rollercoasters) does in fact benefit the bottom line measurably, both tangibly and intangibly, over the time period that these expenditures are amortized.