Top Thrill 2
The newly-reborn Top Thrill 2 officially opened to the public on May 4, 2024 and to be clear, fans’ forum frustrations were quickly left in the dust.
Reviews? More or less unanimous. Top Thrill 2 definitely wasn’t a “lesser” version of Top Thrill Dragster. It also wasn’t merely a “return to form” or an equal substitute for the old experience. Nope. It was actually a whole new ride that independently served as one of the best roller coaster experiences on Earth.
That initial launch? Sure it doesn’t accelerate as quickly as Top Thrill Dragster’s. But it turns out that the pulse-pounding countdown to takeoff is still pulse-pounding, that 0 to 76 is still a pretty major launch, that the “gradual” acceleration over eight seconds is actually its own unique thrill, and that curving up into the ride’s vertical ascent with enough wherewithal and breath to actually appreciate it is kinda neat.
Oh, and then the rollback and second launch? It’s now apparent that accelerating backwards at 101 miles per hour is kind of awesome. In fact, that launch – and the pull-up into a new, 420-foot tall rear spike – basically encapsulates the entire experience of Six Flags Magic Mountain’s iconic Superman: Escape from Krypton… and on Top Thrill 2, it’s basically just an appetizer. After multiple seconds of floater air at the top of the spike – hovering over Power Tower – the ride falls as far as Millennium Force, vertically, like it’s nothing.
Then, after a near-miss “head-chopper” visual effect with the ride’s station, we get the full monty, 120-mile-per-hour race for the sky. And unlike Top Thrill Dragster – which tended to teeter atop the 420-foot tall top hat for a moment, appearing as if it might rollback (and indeed, sometimes doing so), Top Thrill 2’s electromagnetic launch crests the top hat with confidence – and a surprising pop of airtime as you gaze out across Lake Erie.
If you haven’t yet, be sure to watch this on-ride POV video of the Top Thrill 2 experience…
So sure, fans had lost the “0 to 120” launch that defined the previous version of this ride… But in exchange, they’d gotten three launches (including a 100 mph backwards one), a rear spike of floater air, and a minute-long ride (versus the original’s infamous 17 seconds).
On paper, it’s easy to understand why fans would be frustrated about the reduced stats of the new ride’s acceleration… but in practice, the reimagined ride provided that same 120 mph launch and more. Unanimously, Top Thrill 2 was a winner that would surely be more reliable, more safe, and frankly, more extreme than its predecessor in many quantifiable ways.
Long story short: if you were willing to shift your focus from acceleration to the overall experience, you’d step off of Top Thrill 2 as a believer. And if you weren’t, then the ride would change your mind for you. It looked as if Zamperla and Cedar Point had done the impossible, effectively re-entering Dragster into the next generation of the Coaster Pantheon as a new, genre-defining experience.
Well… for a week at least.
Emergency Brakes
On May 12, 2024 – just one week after the first riders stepped off with rave reviews of the reimagined ride – Cedar Point announced that Top Thrill 2 would enter an “extended closure as Zamperla (the ride’s manufacturer) completes a mechanical modification to the ride’s vehicles.” Even then, the press release’s expounding upon a new wave of inspections and approvals after such modifications were made pretty clearly communicated: uh oh.
Two weeks later, on June 4th, a second press release re-confirmed that Top Thrill 2 remained closed. Naturally, aside from those “mechanical modifications,” the park didn’t officially say much about the the ride’s ongoing closure… But they were pretty clear about whose fault it is. As in the first press release, the June update again pointed out that the issue rested with Zamperla, and with the engineering of the prototype “Lightning” trains that Top Thrill 2 employs.
Allegedly, brackets stabilizing the trains’ wheels showed significant wear and tear upon opening, requiring Zamperla to reengineer the wheel design altogether and add new, reenforced structural elements. You can understand why – in light of the accident that finally ended Top Thrill Dragster’s run in 2021 – Cedar Point would be disinterested in taking any chances when it comes to train stability and safety…
In any case, Cedar Point’s news channels went silent after the June update, issuing a final statement in late August, just as the would-be blockbuster summer of Top Thrill 2 came to an end. For those holding out hope of tackling Top Thrill 2 in its opening season, the nail was in the coffin. Again citing Zamperla, the park confirmed that a 2024 re-opening of Top Thrill 2 was no longer in consideration, but that the park “remains committed to delivering a reliable, consistent, and unparalleled coaster experience for our guests in 2025.”
For now, though, you can’t help but wonder what Cedar Point’s leadership feels when they look up at their 420-foot albatross… Despite a very costly reimagining, Top Thrill 2 not only failed to become the reliable solution to what ailed the original ride… it missed its entire opening year through piecemeal delays and unimaginable costs.
Meanwhile, fans are likely to spend years on discussion boards and social media debating whether Cedar Fair should’ve swallowed its pride and worked with Intamin – the only manufacturers who’ve proven their ability to tackle such monumental projects; whether Zamperla “bit off more than it can chew” or was selected only by way of being the lowest bidder; whether Top Thrill 2 should ever have happened at all, or if Cedar Point should’ve thrown in the towel on its extreme and astounding stratacoaster.
More to the point, you have to wonder if Six Flags took one look at the botched revival of Top Thrill 2 and decided that Kingda Ka was better demolished than re-invested in. And of course, the ultimate question awaits: will Top Thrill 2 actually return in 2025?
Final Lap
For nearly two decades, Top Thrill Dragster pushed the limits of what a roller coaster can do. 18 million riders were propelled from 0 to 120 miles per hour, shattering the 400-foot height record day after day after day. The silhouette on the peninsula. The trains. The sounds from around the park. The sights from the top. “Baby, I’m ready to go!” In every way, Top Thrill Dragster was a legend.
And now, via Top Thrill 2, the 420-foot ride – the last remaining stratacoaster on Earth – seems to have been granted a second lease on life…. kinda. Consider it a poetic inversion to the fate of fellow ultra-extreme Coaster Wars behemoth, record-breaker, and Lost Legend: Son of Beast, which was similarly given the green light to re-open after a rider injury, but was kept closed in plain sight for years… until it was finally demolished.
Somehow, it seems that Kinzel’s Coaster Wars equivalent of the A-Bomb won’t meet the same fate… but as to whether Top Thrill 2 will have a story as wild as its fabled predecessor? Our best advice for now is simple: “Arms down, head back, and hold on…”
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I think this article deserves an update that mentions the debacle of the past three months. Though maybe that should wait until we actually know something…
Hopefully the story will have a happy ending, and this doesn’t get moved into Lost Legends.
Exactly my strategy! Holding off until we have a clear idea of the next chapter… What a mess. Thanks for reading!