SCREAM IF YOU WANT TO GO FASTER
TEXT DAMON SYSON
IF YOU’RE THE TYPE OF PERSON WHO FEELS THE NEED, THE NEED FOR SPEED, A TRIP TO GERMANY COULD BE JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED. ON 11 JULY, THE FAMOUS NÜRBURGRING RACE TRACK WILL WITNESS THE OPENING OF A NEW ATTRACTION: THE WORLD’S FASTEST ROLLERCOASTER. WITH ITS STATE-OF-THE-ART, COMPRESSED-AIR LAUNCH SYSTEM, THE RING°RACER WILL TRANSPORT TERRIFIED RIDERS TO A VELOCITY OF 135MPH IN JUST 2.5 SECONDS, SO IT’S PROBABLY NOT WISE TO BE EATING AN ICE CREAM
Rollercoasters have come a long way from their origins in 18th-century Russia, where St Petersburg’s aristocrats would amuse themselves by whooshing down 80ft-high wooden ice slides in sleds made of wood or ice.
During the early 19th century the popularity of “Russian mountains” (as rollercoasters are still called to this day in many languages) spread right across Europe. French engineers took the concept further by attaching wheeled cars to a fixed track. Built in Paris in 1812, Les Montagnes Russes à Belleville (the Russian Mountains of Belleville) is generally considered to have been the world’s first rollercoaster.
The modern rollercoaster was born, fittingly enough, in Coney Island, New York. In 1884, an Ohio-born inventor called LaMarcus Adna Thompson built a pair of parallel tracks called the Switchback Railway. It proved a colossal success, even though by Ring°Racer standards, his creation would hardly be classed as thrilling. Its top speed was a mere 6mph.
Nonetheless, the ride proved so popular that it kick-started a global trend. More than 2,000 rollercoasters were built between 1900 and 1920 in the USA alone. The Great Depression and then World War II put paid to this first golden age, but rollercoasters had a second wind in the 1970s when their popularity once again rocketed.
Britain was never far behind in the theme park revolution. A version of the Switchback Railway was built in Skegness in 1885, only a year after Thompson’s Coney Island attraction. In 1920, Margate’s Dreamland saw the opening of the historic Scenic Railway (which was sadly damaged by fire in April 2008). Three years later, Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s legendary Big Dipper, which is still operating today, welcomed its first riders. Since Victorian times, rollercoasters have been as integral to the Great British seaside experience as Kiss Me Quick hats, fish ’n’ chips and saucy postcards.
Today, rollercoasters are one area of mass entertainment where the UK holds its own on the world stage. We may not have the tallest, fastest or longest rollercoasters – America, predictably, holds the majority of records in this department – but we do boast some of the world’s most enduringly popular rides.
“The big problem in the UK has always been getting planning permission,” explains Andy Hine, founder of the Rollercoaster Club of Great Britain. “Whenever places like Alton Towers put in an application for a new ride it’s met with opposition. There are height restrictions, noise restrictions. So our theme parks have a real struggle to build the highest, longest and fastest rides. Whereas in America they can say, ‘Right, here’s some land, here’s $20m, let’s build one that goes 450ft high and does 120mph.’ Here we need to be a little more creative.”
In America, one-upmanship and aggressive marketing have lead to so-called “coaster wars”. Like skyscrapers, as soon as you’ve built yours, someone else builds theirs a little bit higher or faster. “The problem with that,” says Hine, “is that you don’t necessarily create good rides, you create record-breaking rides. Whereas in England if you look at Nemesis [in Alton Towers], it was built in 1994 but it’s still considered to be one of the most intense rollercoaster rides in the world.”
It also, lest we forget, holds the dubious honour of having had more naked riders than any other rollercoaster after 32 fearless fans set a new world record in 2004.
So what makes a truly great rollercoaster ride? The first thing to explain is that there are three types of Gs – the forces which act on your body when it accelerates. Positive Gs push you down into your seat, negative Gs give you a weightless feeling like you’re flying and lateral Gs force you to the side. According to Hine, rollercoaster enthusiasts love “air time” – the negative Gs that occur when you’re flying over the top of the hill.
“You feel like you’re being thrown out of your seat,” he enthuses. “You’re not really – it’s your brain working overtime. But people love that feeling of being out of control. Amusement parks are all about escapism. You leave your worries at the main gate and, for the two minutes you’re on the coaster, that machine controls your destiny. You know you’re coming back to the station – you’ve seen it happen 100 times from the queue – but the feeling of controlled danger is what it’s all about.”
This is why, according to Hine, true connoisseurs tend to prefer wooden rollercoasters, despite the fact that they’re often smaller and slower than steel ones. “With a steel coaster you feel pretty much welded to the track,” he explains. “Whereas with a wooden one there’s a lot more shake, rattle and roll – that element of feeling out of control – which enhances the thrill factor.”
And if shake, rattle and roll is your thing, look no further than Wales for one of the world’s finest wooden rollercoasters. Megafobia, at Oakwood Theme Park in Pembrokeshire, was built in 1996 but is routinely voted one the top 10 rollercoasters in the world.
But if your goal is to go faster, higher and further, try these for size. Stealth, which opened in Thorpe Park in 2006, is one of the UK’s most impressive rides. It’s Europe’s third tallest rollercoaster at 205ft and reaches 80mph in 1.8 seconds. The current fastest rollercoaster in Europe (until Ring°Racer opens), however, is Furius Baco at PortAventura in Salou, Spain, which reaches 83.9mph in 3.5 seconds.
If heights are your thing, the tallest rollercoaster in Europe is the Silver Star at Europa-Park in Rust, Germany, which stands at 239ft. This dwarves the second tallest, Blackpool’s Pepsi Max Big One, which is advertised as 235ft, though this is, in fact, its height from sea level (the height from ground level is about 213ft). Mind you, the Pepsi Max Big One is far from the first ride to massage its figures. In Las Vegas the marketing department of one hotel famously boasted of its 1,030ft-high rollercoaster, which was, in reality, a 30ft-high rollercoaster located on the roof of a 1,000ft-high building.
Europe’s longest rollercoaster is right here in the UK, in Ripon, North Yorkshire. The Ultimate at Lightwater Valley is set within 44 acres of woodland and takes passengers on a five-and-a-half minute ride along 7,442ft (1.4 miles) of tubular steel track. At 5,497ft (1.04 miles) long, the Pepsi Max Big One comes second.
But after more than a century of taking punters faster, higher and steeper, rollercoasters are reaching the limits of human endurance. So where do they go from here?
Andy Hine believes that the only way theme parks can up the ante is by concentrating on our minds rather than our bodies. “Space Mountain at Disneyworld would be a kiddie ride in the open air,” he says. “But put it in the dark with the lights and various effects, and it becomes a totally different experience.”
Another prime example is Saw, the new ride at Thorpe Park, which uses an array of theatrical effects linked to the 2004 horror film of the same name. Before the ride even begins, passengers are greeted with severed body’ part props and alarming sound effects, all designed to build apprehension and fear.
“Let’s face it,” Hine explains, “you can only go upside down so many times before it becomes a little bit boring. I think the days of really big rides are coming to an end. We are on the borders of what the body can sustain. The engineers and designers have done as much as they can to our bodies. But when it comes to the mind, there are no limits.”
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