Top Thrill Dragster 2022 Status

I was going to add, without the accident, they could've run the ride all last season and still been on pace for the work that they're doing now.

The closure of the ride might be the only thing that changed about the original timeline. (Another edit: I can just imagine how furious the marketing team might have been that they couldn't do a proper PR move with the closure of TTD like they did for Mean Streak. Imagine the news that would've generated vs what actually happened.)

Edit: It's all speculation, obviously, but I would just be curious to know if a conversion of this scale would require more planning than a traditional new installation like GateKeeper due to the various complexities involved.

Any Rocket League players on here? Orange and Blue teams, with cars that have rocket packs on the back of them to launch in the air. The partnership we never expected.

Nice save!

Nice save!

Nice save!

Question, if they have a reverse spike and can swing launch what would be the point of doing vertical launch?

The only thing that stands out in my mind is starting with a reverse launch up the back spike and then launching forward and using the vertical launch to get across the top hat so they don't have to do three passes through the station and instead only one. That could cut down on the cycle time and help riding capacity while still using a semi swing launch approach.

Or.... and this is truly an out of the box idea... put in a swing launch that intentionally doesn't quite clear the tophat the first time, then use the vertical LSMs to accelerate it back DOWN the tophat before it heads backwards to the spike. This would give acceleration on the rollback that would be faster than what you would get with gravity alone.

From what I gathered from Cedar Point's 2024 teaser video, I felt that there was still a very strong connection to motorsports with what seems to likely be a switch from drag racing to Formula 1.

Great Photos of the current construction on CP Rundown Facebook Page.

Link provided: https://www.facebook.com/cp...GBRr4DX5Yl

You get a rollback! YOU get a rollback! Look under your seats...you ALL get rollbacks!

The lagoon DOES look very nice in this location

Those pics really put into perspective just how huge not only the individual attachment points are but also how absolutely wide the support structure is going to be. I don’t think we are going to get a 400 ft + spike or anything but this very well could still be a massive 300 footer

Based on the pictures, looking at the proximity of Iron Dragon and the front footer (closest to TTD’s station) and then comparing the angle of incline with Pantheon’s spike (🤓), I would assume the alleged spike’s track will go over Iron Dragon.

Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic. But yeah the slope is going to be massively over Iron Dragon for sure.

I'll say it, I think we will easily get a 480ft+ spike, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it go over 500 ft. I'd even venture that they may reprofile the tophat. Honestly I would put nothing past them, because when they decide to do something "never done before" it could mean something small, or something large, but it's typically something we don't think they will do.

My post was in response to someone that mentioned whether the spike will go over ID’s track or under. It was pages ago and I have a hard time quoting a post from my phone.

SpeedDemon:

But yeah the slope is going to be massively over Iron Dragon for sure.

What is the distance between the back of the current station and where those new foundations are poured? I agree that the spike will go over Iron Dragon, but unless the perspective of those photos really compresses the amount of space between the station and the footers, I don't believe there's enough room for an ample transition into a spike of decent size from the current station. I say this because a lot of the talk to this point has referenced how the station perfectly aligns with the new footers, but perhaps the re-imagination has the approach to the spike going over top of the current station, or that station is on the list to be removed as well?

If the station was going to come down I can't think of a reason why they wouldn't have done the demo during the off-season.

It looks like 150 feet from the station roof to the rear footers on the "island." For reference, the pull-out into the Dragster tower is 250 horizontal feet. I think ya ain't going backwards 100 mph.

There is zero evidence right now that anything is going to be higher than 420 feet. That's still wishlist stuff. It could change, but there's nothing to indicate it today. We can reasonably assume a swing launch based on the visual evidence, sure, but as of today there's nothing beyond that. Does the rear tower need to be any taller than Toutatis if you just need a little extra space to get up to 120 mph?

Right now this is the main reason I think we’re seeing a spike of 300+ feet:

Given that this will be a “standard” swing launch with the same cadence as that of Pantheon, and seeing how much room there is to work with, the initial launch should easily be able to get the train at least to 80-90mph. There’s a ton of room there. Do we really think they’d be happy with a completely lackluster initial launch that only got the train less than half way up the top hat? So 80-90mph gets you to 250-300ft (complete ballpark based on heights of current rides and their top speeds). The backward launch is going to accelerate the train again (again, if the cadence is the same as Pantheon) so even on the low end I feel like 300ft is happening.

Of course maybe the initial launch will be backward up the spike. There are a few different directions they could be taking this.

Yeah I just don’t see with the sheer size of that triangle pattern and with it being part of a coaster of Top Thrills magnitude anything shorter than 250. And realistically I think 300-350 is what it will take bare minimum for it not to be completely lackluster.

I'm not going on Stratacoaster 1, the initial launch is lackluster.

-No one, ever.