For those of us who grew up on discussion boards and social media following the goings-on of amusement parks and roller coasters, there was no more fundamental a divide than that between Six Flags and Cedar Fair. For decades, these two regional parks operators battled back and forth, inciting the “Coaster Wars” in their continuous battle for amusement supremacy. Pitting their flagship parks against one another, Six Flags and Cedar Fair raced to compete. As of July 2024, though, that long-waged war has officially ended in a truce.
Yep, in July 2024, it became official. Six Flags and Cedar Fair would officially combine in a “merger of equals” (in other words, not one acquiring the other). The newly formed company bears the Six Flags name, but is comprised 51% of Cedar Fair’s unit-holders and helmed by Cedar Fair’s CEO, Richard Zimmerman. There’s no question that it’ll take years for Zimmerman to sort out the new company’s structure – how capital expenditure schedules will adjust, how park operations should align (or not), how (or if) to merge the two portfolios’ separate licensing deals, annual pass programs, food suppliers, marketing, branding, etc… but in the meantime, a bigger question has emerged…
Higher. Taller. Faster. Wilder. In the 1990s and early 2000s, nothing – and we mean nothing – mattered more to Six Flags and Cedar Fair than breaking records. Parks battled back and forth to attract the globe’s most extreme thrill-seekers, loading parks up with the biggest coaster counts they could manage – and then a few more for good measure, too. Powered by innovative, risk-taking new ride manufacturers, the New Millennium saw coasters pierce through previously-unthinkable records like tissue paper, turning regional, seasonal amusement parks into the battleground of the legendary “Coaster Wars.”
It was, of course, Swiss coaster design firm Intamin that changed the game. At Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio (the self-proclaimed “Roller Coaster Capital of the World”), the Modern Marvel: Millennium Force appeared in 2000. The world’s first “gigacoaster” (with a drop over 300 feet), Millennium Force propelled the industry into the 21st century on sleek and smooth steel rails. But no one was ready for what followed. 2003’s Lost Legend: Top Thrill Dragster took the still-new “Intamin Accelerator” model of hydraulically-launched, instantaneously-accelerated coasters to new heights: 420 feet tall, to be precise, reached by way of a 0-to-120-miles-per-hour launch.
That, of course, left Cedar Fair’s competitor, Six Flags, eager for their own 400-foot Intamin Accelerator “stratacoaster.” Which probably explains 2005’s Kingda Ka. The anchor of a new “Golden Kingdom” area within New Jersey’s Six Flags Great Adventure, Kingda Ka would indeed be the “King of Coasters” – the world’s tallest (456 feet) and fastest (accelerating from 0 to 128 miles per hour in just 3.5 seconds).
Though cynics call the ride a blatant copy-paste of Dragster (the two are near-twins but for a difference of 36 feet and 8 miles per hour, plus a 129-foot tall “bunny hill” finale added to Ka), the ride nonetheless became the world’s tallest and fastest roller coaster, period – and for a generation of “East Coasters,” a towering icon of adrenaline in its own right.
And by any measure, Kingda Ka’s reign was unbeatable… for a while.
Shifting gears
Image: Six Flags
By most any measure, the one-two punch of Top Thrill Dragster and Kingda Ka marked the definitive end of the so-called “Coaster Wars.” Both spent their early years plagued by downtime; both were incredibly expensive to operate; and as a natural consequence of being the pinnacles of an era focused on extreme thrills, both were emblematic of a growing sense that both Cedar Fair and Six Flags had abandoned family audiences to cater exclusively to teens. By the mid-2000s, the amusement industry began a substantial pivot away from white-knuckle thrills and toward crowd-pleasing, high-capacity, tried-and-true coasters.
(Not for nothing, but neither Cedar Fair nor Intamin did much business with Intamin after the headaches of their two stratacoasters.)
Don’t get us wrong – Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks still added their fair share of coasters over the last two decades. But the back-and-forth volleying for having the most coasters, or the tallest, or the fastest seemed to fade into the rear view. Instead, particularly Cedar Fair’s parks underwent a bit of a family renaissance, re-focusing on special events, dining, dark rides, reliable B&M coasters, and quality-over-quantity projects.
Eventually, coasters faster than Kingda Ka’s 128 mile per hour speed came along (such as the S&S air-launched Ring Racer in Germany, and fellow Intamin Accelerator Formula Rossa in Abu Dhabi). But neither stateside operator seemed to have any hunger to reclaim the crown. (As evidence of why, neither of those coasters foreign speedsters are operating today.) While Dragster and Kingda Ka continued to experience sometimes-lengthy bouts of downtime (with Kingda Ka in particular missing entire months and seasons), both remained as anchor experiences for their parks… and of course, proverbial Meccas for thrill-seekers.
As you know by nature of reading this, that changed when – in August 2021 – Cedar Point’s stratacoaster ended its two-decade race with a tragic accident. When a bracket on the Intamin-made train came detached during the launch and struck a guest waiting in line below, Cedar Point officially closed the ride for good, never to re-open. Well… kinda.
In 2023, Cedar Point announced that their stratacoaster would be heavily retooled by another ride manufacturer – Zamperla – and swap its all-at-once hydraulic launch for a progressive, multi-pass electromagnetic LSM launch. Though it would still eventually reach 120 miles per hour to summit the 420-foot tall hill, it would take three launches to get there – including a 100 mile per hour backwards acceleration up a new, 400+ foot tall rear spike. (That, it turned out, also didn’t really work. The ride operated for just a few weeks before shuttering to have its trains majorly modified, with an expected reopening in 2025.)
Though the new “Top Thrill 2” received rave reviews during its short time operating, there was no question that that instantaneous acceleration – from 0 to 120+ miles per hour in four seconds – was sorely missed… and indeed, could only still be found on Kingda Ka.
Rumors
Kingda Ka was the first coaster I consciously remember being announced, it was the first coaster where I followed its construction, and I vividly remember my first ride on it in 2007. I rode the teal train with my dad. I had the pleasure of operating it in 2015 and it has been a… pic.twitter.com/IIrXUehOQo
In fall 2024, rumors began to swirl by way of well-respected YouTubers in the coaster community that Six Flags had lost enthusiasm in the expensive and continuous upkeep of Kingda Ka… and more to the point, than an unpublished-but-penciled-in retirement of the coaster had been moved up from the end of the 2025 season to the end of this season. Insiders insisted that despite Six Flags having said nothing of the sort, fans had just weeks left to experience the “King of Coasters”…
Naturally, online commentators valiantly refuted the suggestion as clickbait and ragebait meant to bolster ad revenue. Admittedly, it sounded ridiculous that Six Flags would close the world’s tallest and fastest roller coaster with no pomp and circumstance, no exclusive merch, and – worst of all – no “last rides.” Fans looked at the park’s own Instagram posts, which had advertised Kingda Ka as a reason to buy a 2025 season pass. Surely if they planned to close the ride forever, they would’ve made a big to-do about it.
Image: Intamin
As the days of the 2024 season waned, fans eagerly accosted Six Flags emails and social media accounts, all of whom suggested that the rumors were just that, and that Kingda Ka was merely closing on November 10th for its typical year-end slumber ahead of the park’s Christmas celebrations – not for the kind of permanent closure fans suggested.
The smell of wood – decades-old, cut, stacked, and bolted, bathed in and baked by summer sun; the aroma of grease, clinging to the lift chain as humming motors drag bug-splattered wooden trains upward, anti-rollback wedges clacking into place in their wake; the roaring, rumbling wave of sound as riders snake along a superstructure of swaying wood beams, shuddering and shaking as up-stop wheels ricochet…
For more than a century, the wooden roller coaster has been a staple of amusement parks the world over. And even once it wooden roller coasters were joined by altogether sleeker, smoother steel sisters throughout the 1960s and ’70s, the wooden roller coasters remained landmarks; classics; essentials.
Image: Six Flags, by Kristin Fitzgerald
But in the early 2000s, roller coaster enthusiasts encountered a question they’d never had to ask before: what makes a wooden roller coaster a wooden roller coaster? What if the wood wasn’t aged and hand-sawed, but brand new and laser-cut? What if there were no clack-clack-clack of a classic chain lift? And what if the ride itself were smooth as glass, arcing and slaloming and diving as effortlessly as only a steel coaster once could?
