I woke up early on Thursday morning as I had a few things to do before making the two-hour drive to Cedar Point. I did all the normal morning stuff, made sure I had both dubbing and cloning cables for my camera [Footnote 1], programmed the VCR, and got going. As I was programming the VCR, a quick report came on. A local news reporter was interviewing Cedar Point PR representative Bryan Edwards and noting that, no, he hadn't ridden Top Thrill Dragster yet, and neither had anybody else due to bad weather.
Two hours later, just before 9 am, I arrived at the park, in time for the official Top Thrill Dragster opening ceremony at 9:15. Just in time. Except that the park started early. By the time I got to the plaza where the ceremony was taking place, park GM Dan Keller had already completed his remarks and was turning the microphone over to ACE President Carole Sanderson. Next, festivities moved to the ride entrance where a ribbon was cut, allowing at least one person to push ahead of the long queue which had already formed at the tunnel entrance. As a train whizzed past on the launch track, I walked along the long line, saying hello to several friends as I located the back of the line.
We proceeded through a concrete tunnel under the launch track, immediately uptrack of the machinery building, and down a long, narrow space at the center of the ride which houses the ride queue. As this was a special event with a relatively small number of attendees, we took the shortest possible path from the tunnel down to the station ramp. There is a short section past the end of the launch track, then the bulk of the queue area has a fence separating it from the brake run, and a 10' wooden wall separating it from the storage tracks and the launch track. Before long, I grew to absolutely hate that wall, as it completely obscures the view of what is happening with the ride from anybody waiting in line. It's not as though it really hides anything...yes, it separates the service area with the storage tracks from the queue, but all that is readily visible from the midway. All it really does is to make sure that while people in the queue can hear the audio effects, they can't see the trains launch.
An hour went by. Another hour went by. This wasn't what any of us had planned on. I mean, I hadn't planned on getting a bunch of rides, but based on my experience last year I figured I might have some hanging-out time, time to get a good look at the ride, talk with a lot of people, share experiences, and see broadcasters in action. Instead, I spent the entire morning with a group of about five people, standing behind that ugly grey-green wall, wondering why the ride only ran occasionally. Nothing against those people, it's just that there were hundreds of people there and I had hoped to at least say 'hi' to a significant number of them. Finally, after three and a half hours of sporadic operation, it was my turn. In the station a PA speaker blared an obnoxious "safety" recording full of $4 words and legalese which is destined to become the most widely ridiculed and/or ignored recording in the park. I swear, Cedar Fair's legal team is gonna get somebody killed if this nonsense keeps up.
I ended up in a left-hand seat in the middle of the train. The seats are roomy, possibly more so than the ones on Millennium Force. At the very least, the seats are a little deeper. The safety belts seem to be about the same length as well, and are the same type, with the looped handle on the end. Park policy is that you must secure your own seat belt, but that policy is at odds with the seat configuration, simply because the buckle location is extremely awkward. In order to fasten the belt I found I had to extend it to its maximum length, but once fastened it is, by design, nearly impossible to adjust. This is far from ideal for me, as, while I need the full length to fasten the belt, it doesn't take that much length to get the ends to connect. If the park is going to refuse to help people fasten these belts, then they need to make the outboard half of the belt longer so that the buckle is out front where the rider can actually reach it with both hands without twisting in the seat. That, or they need to figure out some way to secure the buckle so that the belt can be fastened with only one hand.
Once the belt was fastened, next I pulled back on the lap bar. The lap bar design on Dragster is radically different from that used on Millennium Force. On Millennium Force, when I pull the lap bar back as far as it can comfortably go, the end of the bar sits several inches back from my stomach and several inches up from my thighs. On Dragster, the arrangement of the support arm and the end of the lap bar has been redesigned so that the bar can actually drop all the way to my lap without smashing anything. So far, so good. I leaned back in the seat to feel two sharp points digging into my shoulders. Upon closer examination I determined that the headrest is made entirely out of expanded foam attached to a mounting bracket. The bottom of the headrest has two points, one on each extreme end. It appears that the bottom of the headrest is supposed to match the contour of the seat back, but it does not. The headrest is slightly narrower at the base, hence the points digging into my back. I predict that before long these points will start breaking off of the headrests, and I can hardly wait for that to happen. My pet theory is that Dragster's seats are slightly wider than those on Xcelerator, but the headrests are made from the same mold.
An attendant came past and checked the belt and bar, he also asked if my glasses were secure. I noted the neck cord and informed him that, cord or no cord, they weren't going anywhere anyway. We rolled out of the station and through the staging area, up to the end of the launch runway. Nearby speakers broadcast the rumble of a top fuel engine. Below me, a maintenance man was manually operating the juice valve on a smoke machine strategically located beneath the last car. With a clunk, the launch sled engaged with the bottom of the train. The train moved backwards a few inches. With a loud hiss, all the brake fins dropped clear. The sound of squealing tires played over the speakers, and we were off like a rocket.
The acceleration is immediate, and it goes on for a very long time. Seconds later...the longest seconds you can possibly imagine, it feels like the train starts slowing, but it really doesn't, in fact it merely stops accelerating as it disengages from the launch sled. The train turns skyward until the only thing you can see is track and sky. The sky spins a quarter turn, but you still can't see anything. Suddenly the train noses over the top of the hill, and while you can feel yourself lifting against the lap bar, this is a little odd because of the near total absense of sensation. I think it's because of the lack of jerk as gravity goes away and you float over the top of the hill. An airtime moment on a coaster almost always begins with a slight kick to pop you out of your seat. Very slight on Millennium Force, severe on Magnum. Dragster doesn't do this at all. Instead, it just rolls over the top so quickly that there is no time for sight-seeing. How high is it? 42 feet? 420 feet? 4,200 feet? It really doesn't matter. I remember seeing a large metal roof with the words "PADDLEWHEEL EXCURSIONS" on top, but apart from that there was no time to notice details...this from a person who is practiced at seeing 1/30-second video flash-frames. Partly this is because of what happens next.
What happens next, of course, is the drop. There really is no opportunity to appreciate the height of the drop. This is partly because it happens so fast. This is also because of the twist on the way down. You don't really notice how far it is to the bottom because you're too busy noticing the yellow support arms attaching to the track from every direction, meaning that there is no obvious path through that mess. At the bottom, the train gently pulls out to a straightaway, and I grabbed the seatback ahead of me, ready for that stiff magnetic braking I've learned to expect. But it didn't happen. Instead, the ride slowed very gently. We rolled into the unloading station and unloaded. A truly amazing ride was born.
I took some photos, I talked to a few people, and I walked down to Johnny Rocket's for lunch. A little before 3pm, I got back in line again. Operation was a little more steady this time around, partly because a lot of the broadcasters were done shooting footage on the ride. But operations were still extremely sluggish. Then disaster struck. A loaded train was launched, went halfway up the tower, then rolled back down to the launch track. Of course, from behind the wall I couldn't see what happened or how long it took for the train to roll back to the station. What I do know is that for more than an hour we stood and waited. I began to wonder if I would get a second ride and still be able to get my season pass processed. In fact the wait wasn't quite as long as before, but it was a long, boring wait. And the ride was just as incredible the second time around. There was one issue that came up, which I will assume is because this is a new ride. It is well known that I wear eyeglasses, not only because I cannot see without them, but also because on a high-speed roller coaster (basically anything faster than I can walk) they supply a moderate level of eye protection. Personally, I reccommend some form of eye protection for anybody who rides Top Thrill Dragster, particularly once the mufflehead season starts up. That I wear my glasses while riding is an absolute rule for me, and in fact it is pretty much the only rule I have which I require any park to abide by. It is also well documented that for Top Thrill Dragster, Cedar Point allows glasses to be worn provided that they are secured. To that end, I had my optician adjust my glasses such that they aren't coming off unless I want them off, and to make parks happy, I invested in a cheap neck cord. For my first ride, this was fine:
ATTENDANT: Are your glasses secure?For my second ride, the (different) attendant was not so easily satisfied, so I reached back and tied a knot in the cord. That snugs the cord around the back of my head, but if made too tight has the unfortunate effect of pulling the temples of my spectacles off the backs of my ears, which besides being terribly uncomfortable, is actually not as secure as wearing the darned things with no cord at all (which, my first ride demonstrated, is demonstrably safe). I made the mistake of pointing this out (after all, why was the neck-cord OK at 12:45 but not at 5:30?) and the result was nearly a full-blown shouting match. No, I will not leave them behind. No, they will not come off. Even if they could come off (which they can't), there is a safety measure in place to keep them from going anywhere. Be aware that Dragster has a physical securement requirement for eyeglasses, but as of Press Day there seemed to be some disagreement about exactly what that meant. I presume that as the season goes on there will be further clarification, or the park will do as it has done on 14 other coasters and leave it to the rider's discretion.
Considering that the ride was plagued with operational problems, the park put on quite a show. They got the ride running. They had lots of services available for press and broadcasters. They had their camera mounts up and working. They even provided lunch. The park did a great job of putting together their media event, particularly considering the frustrating conditions of bad weather early on and mechanical glitches. The park even distributed cold beverages to people stuck waiting in line during a particularly nasty bit of down-time. Unfortunately, their characteristic reluctance to divulge information can't have won the park many friends. Everyone present could clearly see that one of the six trains was nowhere to be found, one car on each train was mysteriously absent, and for a ride that appeared to operate perfectly every time it was launched (save one), there was nothing but speculation as to why the last row always went out empty, why the ride didn't run consistently, or where the missing parts were. Without explanation, we all saw a ride that was an amazing technical achievement, a tremendous experience, unlike anything else anywhere, and clearly not at all ready for "prime time". It's a great ride, but any responsible journalist would be inclined to tell people to wait a month or so before trying to ride on it. Because while it's a great ride, NO ride, no matter how great, is worth a three-hour wait.
Give the park another month to get the ride running properly, and Dragster will be an excellent addition to the park's line-up. Accordingly, I'll be returning for Opening Day this Sunday. 8-)
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1: In digital video there is a difference between dubbing and cloning. Dubbing involves copying the analog audio and video signals while cloning involves copying the digital data stream. [Return to text]
--DCAjr
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