Millennium
Force
The
Hypercoaster Rules No More.
It was just a little over
ten years ago that the Hypercoaster was born. And the park that
spawned this gargantuan new breed of rollercoasters was, of course,
Cedar Point of Sandusky, Ohio.
Cedar Fair,
L.P., president and CEO Richard Kinzel explains: "Cedar Point
has one of the oldest roller coaster heritages in the world. Our
first roller coaster, the 25-foot-tall Switchback Railway, opened
in 1892 and traveled at 10 mph. Thrill rides are our birthright,
and we needed a signature attraction that would make a statement.
At the time, the industry was really into looping roller coasters,
but I wanted something different, completely one of a kind. It
had to be the tallest and fastest steel thriller in the world,
but feature the hills and turns experienced on classic wooden
roller coasters like the Coney Island Cyclone."
In August
of 1988, site preparation and construction began. More than 40
companies spent 10 months battling Mother Nature's wintry fury
to set more than 350 concrete footers in place (some with bases
larger than a city bus) and weld together 568 tons of 10-foot-wide
steel columns. And on May 6, 1989, the Arrow Dynamics-designed
$8 million Magnum XL-200 was officially launched. Hauled
by a 1,060-foot-long, seven-ton lift chain to the top of what
was then a record-annihilating 205-foot peak, Magnum XL-200's
first train rocketed into our hearts at a speed of 72 miles per
hour. From that day forward, any coaster with a hill or drop measuring
greater than 200 feet in height would be known as a hypercoaster.
In the decade that followed, Arrow went on to build Kennywood's Steel Phantom,
a looping hypercoaster whose second drop falls 225 feet;
Buffalo Bill's Desperado on the California/Nevada state
border; and overseas, Blackpool Pleasure Beach's Pepsi Max
Big One.
In the mid
1990's, D.H. Morgan Manufacturing made a name for itself by creating
its spectacular hypercoaster trio: Wild Thing, for Valleyfair, Steel Force for Dorney Park and Mamba for Worlds
of Fun. And in 1999, both Intamin and Bolliger & Mabillard
broke through the 200-foot ceiling, Intamin delivering Superman:
Ride of Steel to Six Flags Darien Lake and B&M unleashing
their radical "Speed" Coasters, Raging Bull at
Six Flags Great America and Apollo's
Chariot at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
And as we
move into the next millennium, the hypercoaster continues to thrive.
For 2000, Intamin has created two more of its hyper-active S:ROS
machines, one for Six Flags New England and one for Six Flags
America. And Giovanola came to the party early this year with
Six Flags Magic Mountain's bone-crushing Goliath,
at 255 feet tall, the largest hypercoaster ever constructed.
But once again, Cedar Point has shaken the Thrillseeking world to its core
with something that makes its own Magnum-XL 200 look Lilliputian.
Friends, welcome to the era of the Giga-Coaster.
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
So I'm scheduled
to fly from New York to Ohio on Delta's Flight 711 the afternoon
of Wednesday, May 10th, arriving the night before Cedar Point's Millennium Force media preview on the 11th. The local weather
reports were a bit dire, but far as I could tell, we'd be in the
air well before any serious rain started falling. Didn't even
bother to call ahead and check if 711's departure might be delayed.
D'oh.
By the time
I got to La Guardia, most flights out of all three New
York airports had already been canceled outright, and the few
that still held out any vain hope of an eventual runway slot were
pushed back by hours. As the sky grew darker, things looked worse
and worse. Fl. 711's original 3:40 PM gate closure had become
5:45, then 6:30... then 7:45. And when I'd returned from choking
down an $8 sandwich and a $2 bag of chips, there it was, glowing
in an awful amber light above the check-in counter: CANCELED.
"[Expletives deleted]."
The best Delta
could offer was a stand-by ticket on a flight to Atlanta at 10:00
PM, and then a confirmed seat on a flight from Atlanta to Cincinnati
at 6:00 AM the next morning. Given the number of stranded passengers
already milling about, that stand-by looked like a sucker's bet.
Perhaps this just wasn't gonna happen...
But then my
inner Thrillseeker began to bark like a drill sergeant: "You're
going to let this little setback stop you? We're talking
about Millennium Force, scrub! Shut yer pie-hole, suck in that
gut and start driving! Double-time, soldier!"
I high-tailed
it to the rental counter, grabbed a Dodge Neon and put the hammer
down. By 7:00 PM, I'd crossed over into New Jersey with 700 miles
in front of me. Sheets of water falling, heavy winds blowing,
lightning exploding in all directions... had I lost my mind?
Around 1:00
AM, I'd almost reached Pennsylvania's western border and figured
I better pull over, get a little shut-eye. But with morning light
breaking, I was back on the highway, bleary-eyed and again questioning
my mental health.
And then,
a little after 9:00 AM, approaching the Cedar Point causeway,
I got my first look at that already infamous profile, rising like
a ghostly apparition (a steel phantom, as it were) before a gray,
misty sky:
Had I been
in a Tex Avery cartoon, my eyes would have leapt from their sockets,
my jaw landing in my lap, my tongue rolling out like a party streamer: Aaah-OOOOOO-Gaaa!
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
There's big, there's bigger, there's really huge, there's "are you kidding me?"
And then there's
Millennium Force. It's obscene.
Since last
July, when the park first announced this $25 million monstrosity,
we've all watched as it's grown, gazed in awe at those construction
images on the Point's web site. But when you finally see it in
the flesh...
Down the midway,
jogging to the left past Iron Dragon and the Wildcat,
looming just over there, right alongside Mantis.
More than 30 stories high. With that 80-degree plunge. "[More
expletives deleted]."
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In the barest sense, Millennium Force is a "standard" rollercoaster;
we're carried up a big hill sittin' in a two-per-row train and
once we're over the first peak, gravity takes care of the rest.
But this coaster sports all kinds of wonky technology, like its
amazing lift mechanicals.
Necessity
being the mother of invention, Millennium Force's new elevator
cable system was developed because a traditional chain loop would
simply have weighed too much (remember that Magnum's lift chain
tips the scales at seven tons, and it's only two-thirds as tall).
So Intamin engineered what is essentially a big tow line attached
to a drum beneath the lift hill. The tow line runs from the drum
up to the peak of the hill and down its 45-degree slope into the
station.
As a train engages the end of the tow cable, a computer system that regulates
the contraption powers up an 800-horsepower motor that drives
a set of sprocketed gears connected to the drum. The gears shift,
the drum turns, the cable is reeled in and we're dragged skyward... very quickly.
Then there
are the vehicles themselves, the same open-air trains that run
on Intamin's Supermen. As can be seen in the shot at left, the
rear seats are slightly raised, allowing for a better view from
those positions. And with almost nothing in the way of sidewalls,
it's all clear off the port and starboard sides. And when you're
climbing that lift, hoo-doggies...
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The queue
takes ya back and forth inside the Force's last overbanked turn
and alongside the magnetic brake run (the only braking on the
entire course, by the way), a fine spot to listen to the ecstatic
yelping and gasping as each train slides back into the station.
Two bits of advice: 1) Wait for the front seat. 2) Wait for the
front seat. Why?
For starters, we can savor how abruptly the cobalt blue box-beam track angles
up towards the sky right out of the station. We also get to watch
as the tow cable slithers down underneath the low-slung nose of
the lead car.
We begin to
move; all smooth and quiet-like, the cable drags us a foot or
two. But without warning...
"[Still
more expletives deleted]!" We start jamming up that
immense incline, tipping back, waaaay back. According to park
officials, we've only got about 22 seconds before we ain't goin'
up no more, so look around now. On the right, all of Cedar Point
and its endless thrill ride smorgasbord... Tinker toys from the heights we're at in a heartbeat. Ack. On the left, water
and more water. Eep. Eyes front, it's nothing but the top getting
closerandcloserandcloser.
I couldn't help but recall my first ride on the Power
Tower and the slapdoodles dancing in my gut when we reached
that hellraiser's 240-foot drop point... and we're scrambling
still another 70 feet higher.
280, 290, 300 feet... we start to level off. And as our car glides over the
top of Millennium Force's exalted, voluptuous 310-foot apex, the
horizon rises. And rises.
And rises.
And soon,
we can't see the horizon any more. Because we're looking straight
down.
Lean forward,
raise your arms and feel all of creation screaming up at you as
we hurtle down this abominable cliff to a top speed of Ninety-Three
miles per hour. Several merciless, synapse-blasting seconds
of near free-fall. No, it isn't a completely vertical descent,
but try telling that to your brain when we're bombing down what
is likely the greatest first drop on any coaster, of any kind,
ever built.
Friends, it is everything we'd hoped it would be.
Rocketing
like a bullet train, we plow through a long, sweeping valley only
to soar up into the first of the Force's signature overbanked
turns, 122 degrees off vertical, 169 feet over terra firma.
So smooth,
so graceful, not a jolt, not a single funky shimmy, just wheel-smokin'
speed as we soar up and twist, lean over, and keep right on rollin'
like there was no tomorrow. Damn!
Diving back down, we skim over the planet's crust, careen through a bend and
race into our first tunnel. Outta the darkness and into the light,
we whip right up to the top of this coaster's second greatest
elevation, a 182-foot-tall lipsmacker (less than 20 feet shy of
Magnum's claim to fame) where, yes, airtime is in abundance.
In the back, it's fine, but in the front, divine. Nothing severe, just
a sweet, gradual floater, like a negative-G palate cleanser before
we move on to the Force's twister-like second course.
Out over the
coaster's isolated "island," we lunge nearly to ground-level
again and enter a pretzel-shaped whirlwind, hustling non-stop
into another elevated, overbanked turn. Poetry in motion, bay-bay!
Down, around
and back up again, through still another overbanked turn,
canting this way and that, ascending and descending, still moving
with furious intensity, yet never hitting a millimeter of track
that doesn't feel just right. Every steel coaster,
no matter how big or small, should run like this puppy.
Leaving the island behind, we vault over a smaller hill that gets our bods
goin' airborne again, and cruise down into a second tunnel, carving
through a sharp turn to the left.
Up alongside
the boarding station, there's a bunny hop awaitin', and we do
some rump-raising one last time.
A short straightaway sends the train whistling into a final whoop-dee-doo
U-turn and we glide into the electromagnetic clutches of Intamin's
high-tech brake run.
Stunning,
that's the only word for it.
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Once again,
Cedar Point has raised the bar for the rest of the world and that
leads to the inevitable question - when will we see more giga-coasters? Well, Japan is soon to have its own; Nagashima
Spaland's Steel Dragon 2000, from Morgan Manufacturing,
is due to open in August.
Problem is,
they don't come cheap, so we can't expect them to grow like crabgrass.
But based upon the rabid reaction this thrill ride has generated,
I'd guess that Millennium Force is unlikely to remain the only
giga-coaster on the North American continent for too terribly
long.
The Force's
three-plus-hour lines tell us something else, too: we aren't even
close to hitting the limits of what the general public will ride.
I'm projecting a bit here, but can a 400-footer - a "tera-coaster"
- be decades away? Maybe.
And maybe
not.
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Millennium
Force
- TRACK LENGTH:
6,595 Feet
- TOP SPEED:
93 Miles Per Hour
- MAX. HEIGHT:
310 feet
- MAX. DROP:
300 feet
- MAX. DESCENT
ANGLE: 80 Degrees
- RIDE DURATION:
Approx. 2 minutes
- CARS: Three
trains composed of nine cars, four passengers per car. Each
car accommodates two passengers across.
- CAPACITY:
Approx. 1,600 guests per hour
- MANUFACTURER:
Intamin AG, Wollerau, Switzerland
Millennium
Force logo artwork courtesy Cedar Point. All Rights Reserved.
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