TOP THRILL DRAGSTER: The Inside Track on Cedar Point’s “Coaster Wars” Icon from High Octane Origins to Relaunch

Few roller coasters have had as wild a life as Top Thrill Dragster. But then again, few roller coasters dare to tackle the same speed, acceleration, height, and adrenaline that the world’s first stratacoaster did. Even through rough patches, there was no question that Top Thrill Dragster was an engineering marvel, and though both taller and faster rides had indeed surpassed its statistics, none could match its boldness in breaking through the 400 foot height barrier with Intamin’s signature abandon.

pic.twitter.com/qUOFD756CB

— Cedar Point (@cedarpoint) January 9, 2023

For eighteen white-knuckle years, Top Thrill Dragster launched riders from 0 to 120 miles per hour, propelled by a wire, pulled by a winch, and powered by pressured hydraulic fluid and a prayer. The accident in 2021 could well have marked the end of Cedar Point’s troublesome landmark. But Dragster hadn’t crossed its finish line; it was just at a pit stop.

On January 9, 2023 – four months after their cryptic statement teasing the “a new and reimagined ride experience” – Cedar Point tweeted a video promising “A new formula for thrills – coming 2024.” Seemingly a reference to Formula One racing, the promotion set the coaster world on fire suggesting that Top Thrill Dragster – or some version of it – would indeed return… And just like that, imaginations revved up…

What if…?

With the official acknowledgement that Top Thrill Dragster wasn’t so much retired as in the process of a rebirth, anything seemed possible, including the impossible. Friends of friends who worked at the Dippin’ Dot stand on the midway heard a lot of “rumblings” around the workplace, eagerly racing to the Internet to share their “inside information”…

In response, coaster enthusiasts raced to mock-up solutions for the ride, imagining arcing swing launches, extended layouts with speed-racing second halves, massive twisting towers, and even dreams of stealing back the coaster crown by extending the ride’s top hat to surpass 500 feet. Surely the equivalent of coaster enthusiast fan fiction, such dreams were fun… so long as you didn’t let them recalibrate your expectations.

After all, more grounded fans focused on three significant questions: 

• Which manufacturer would take lead on any inevitable reimagining? Would Intamin put in a bid for fixing their problematic roller coaster? If they did, would Cedar Fair even look at it? Who else could even be capable of working on such an extreme, extraordinary coaster – much less interested in pursuing it?
  
•  What would the (re)manufacturer do about the troublesome, expensive hydraulic launch system? After all, the business of launching roller coasters had changed tremendously since Intamin’s Accelerator model launched in 2002, and nearly all remaining hydraulic launch coasters were regarded as expensive, temperamental, frustrating installations to one degree or another.
  
•  If Dragster’s launch system did not remain a hydraulic launch, how would a train gain enough speed to crest its 420-foot tall top hat without it?

On June 27, 2023, @CedarPoint tweeted out a white roller coaster structural component (above), signaling a “first delivery” with a checkered flag emoji. The mystery track segment coincided with major work on the coaster itself.

Throughout the summer, Top Thrill Dragster’s iconic sunburst yellow supports and cherry red track disappeared beneath a new paint job: gunmetal gray and white. Rumors swirled that the “new” Dragster would shed its racing stripes and be re-stylized as a cosmic, space-themed launch into the stars. (The name “Polaris” was floated by insiders and even teased by a toying marketing team.)

Cedar Point itself seemed to put those rumors to rest in July 2023 when “CP Racing” photo spots appeared along the Dragster midway, adorning construction walls with invitations to “JOIN THE TEAM – 2024” and “GET REVVVED UP,” all centered on an announcement due August 1, 2023.

Unfortunately for Cedar Point, the answer came on July 31, 2023 – one day before the park’s planned announcement. Confirming some fans’ theories, the news broke via an accidental early site update from coaster manufacturer Zamperla.

Though the Italian ride designer had been on some fans’ short list of potential manufacturers for the reborn ride, many considered it a long-shot. After all, despite being credited for nearly 400 roller coasters, a vast, vast majority of Zamperla’s portfolio is made of kiddie and family coasters. (The company’s real bread and butter is the flat ride business, including the omnipresent Disk’O and the increasingly widespread NebulaZ.)

Zamperla has just a few major roller coasters in its history, with the best known probably being Thunderbolt in Luna Park at New York’s Coney Island (a park which Zamperla itself operates). Unlikely as the manufacturer may have been to tackle one of the highest profile re-launches of one of the most legendary roller coasters on Earth, under Zamperla’s watch, the remains of Top Thrill Dragster would indeed evolve…

Relaunch

It was official… In 2024, Cedar Point would officially hit the racetrack once more with TOP THRILL 2. (Yes, that’s the ride’s official full name, proving that some things never change at Cedar Fair.)

Name aside, Zamperla’s solution for the revived Dragster would clearly be rooted in necessity. As expected, the ride would strip out Intamin’s problematic hydraulic launch system as well as the ride’s trains (the cause of the 2019 accident) in favor of LSMs – linear synchronous motors – lining the launch track and using electromagnetism to propel new, Zamperla-produced rolling stock. The combination of Zamperla’s LSMs and new trains would in effect be a very big, very splashy, and very risky proof of concept for the company’s “Lightning” coaster model – their would-be high-profile entry into the ranks of a major manufacturer.

Swapping the ride’s hydraulic launch for an LSM one would theoretically improve the ride’s reliability, longevity, and safety. Of course, the (relatively) gradual acceleration provided by electromagnetism would be a major change from the nearly instantaneous potential-to-kinetic energy conversion of unspooling of a hydraulically-powered launch cable, which means that an all-at-once, 0 to 120 mph launch would simply be unattainable.

That left the announcement as something between a hype session and a funeral dirge. After all, on paper, the Zamperla iteration of the ride would fall well short of the original ride’s signature statistic – that 0 to 120 mile per hour all-at-once launch.

Despite LSMs lining the entire stretch of launch track, Zamperla expected its new dragster-shaped trains to only be able to reach 76 miles per hour on a first pass down the runway. Even that would likely take eight or nine Mississippi seconds versus the previous ride accelerating to nearly twice the speed in half the time.

Clearly, that speed wouldn’t give the train enough momentum to crest the top hat. Quite the contrary, the park’s official renderings suggested that we ought not expect the initial launch to get the train even halfway up the iconic 420 foot tall tower… a somewhat agonizing visual made all the more cringey by the park’s insistence that now everyone would get a much-sought-after “rollback.”

Instead of cresting the hill, the trains on Top Thrill 2 would roll back down to Earth, realign with the LSM straightaway, pass backwards through the launch field, and reach the ride’s next speed peak: a not-insignificant 101 miles per hour. That would be enough to rocket it backwards past the station and up the ride’s newest feature: a 420-foot tall vertical rear spike, providing riders with views straight down to Earth below.

After several seconds of weightlessness, the trains would plunge down the spike, passing through the launch track a third time to finally reach the 120 miles per hour needed to clear the top hat, spiraling back down and crossing the finishing line as before. (Naturally, Cedar Fair’s inclination to record-breaking had the ride billed as “The world’s tallest and fastest triple-launch stratacoaster” – an odd designation given that, with Kingda Ka’s closure, it’s the only stratacoaster on Earth, period.)

Of course, it’s also easy to see why some enthusiasts were immensely disappointed by the announcement. It’s not just because a year of fan-made Planet Coaster variations introduced ideas not included in the ride’s final form; it’s because Top Thrill 2 would inherently emphasize a different aspect of the experience than the original.

Think about it: while Top Thrill Dragster’s top speed and height were often held up as its hallmarks (and both remained in Top Thrill 2), fundamentally, it was the acceleration that made the ride what it was. The reason no one cared that it was “only” 17 seconds is that the real selling point would be what occurred in the first four: that gripping, breathtaking 0 to 120 mile per hour take-off. That instantaneous intensity was unlike anything the average person could experience… except, maybe hopping into the passenger seat of a real Formula 1 race car.

Top Thrill 2, it seemed, would be a more complete ride experience, but a less concise one, leaving fans to grapple with the disquieting underwhelm of a majorly-modified experience.

With fans’ already temperamental toward the seemingly-reduced ride, Cedar Point ruffled major PR feathers when – just weeks before the ride’s opening – they announced that their policies and procedures around it had changed. Apparently in consultation with Zamperla, the park decided at the last minute that Top Thrill 2 would follow in the footsteps of many RMC coasters, requiring riders to completely divest themselves of “carry-on items” – including phones, wallets, and eyeglasses – with such serious oversight that queueing guests would need to pass through metal detectors.

There was just one problem: unlike RMC rides that often have free lockers located deep into ride queues and just before the station, the late decision from Cedar Fair and Zamperla unfortunately meant that there was no time (and perhaps, no place) to build in-queue lockers. Ergo – shucks! – practically every single rider would need to fork over a couple bucks to rent a locker outside of the ride’s entrance, then endure multi-hour waits with little more than the lines on their palms for entertainment (assuming they could even see those lines without their glasses.) Oops.

Certainly, the weeks leading up to the opening of Top Thrill 2 were precarious… With the ride’s lowered acceleration overtaking online discussion and forced-fee lockers breaking through to mainstream news coverage, the coaster community waited with baited breath… If only they knew what was to come…