Letzte Bearbeitung am 08-Jan-03 um 16:41 Uhr ()
Cedar Point to take wraps off its mystery ride
SANDUSKY - For more than four months, Cedar Point has kept coaster enthusiasts guessing about the giant thrill ride it’s building on the Gemini midway.
The guessing game will end tomorrow, when the amusement park announces the identity of the towering red and yellow ride.
"We’ve just neglected to say what it was," park spokesman Janice Witherow said jokingly. Turning serious, she added, "We are all just bursting at the seams and we are optimistic about having a spectacular new attraction to talk about for this new season."
Of course, Cedar Point fans and coaster aficionados have been talking about the ride for months, endlessly analyzing photos and clues from the construction area on Web sites such as virtualmidway.com.
Walt Schmidt of Huron, Ohio, who runs the Web site, said photos of the unfinished ride appear to confirm that the soon-to-be named ride will be a taller, faster version of a roller coaster at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, Calif.
Xcelerator, built for the Cedar Fair park by Intamin AG of Switzerland, launches riders up a 205-foot hill at 82 mph, then plunges them down at a 90-degree angle into a series of twists and turns.
Ms. Witherow said the ride’s structure is nearly complete and that Cedar Point expects to have it ready for the opening day, May 4. She wouldn’t divulge the ride’s height or other specifications yesterday.
Mr. Schmidt said photos he’s seen online show that the new ride dwarfs other nearby attractions, including the Magnum XL-200 roller coaster, which is 205 feet high.
"Just by comparing it on the skyline to other rides and guesstimating what it is, it’s certainly over 400 feet," he said.
Ms. Witherow said Cedar Point traditionally announces new attractions in the fall, just weeks after the end of the park’s summer season.
This time, the company decided to capitalize on the buzz generated by the start of construction in late August and keep the project’s identity under wraps.
Mr. Schmidt said the company’s hush-hush approach sparked curiosity among coaster fans, who flocked to Web sites like his to see photos and trade gossip about the ride.
"I’ve seen my traffic do nothing but increase since the park closed," he said. "When the ride was actually topped off a few weeks ago, it set a one-day record for the site. I had over 10,000 visitors in just that one day."
(c) http://www.toledoblade.com
Ja "tomorrow" wird das Ratespiel zuende sein. Hoffentlich wird nicht nur der Namen sondern auch viele Fakten "mitliefern".
Sebastian Horacek alias Coasters der am Ball dran bleibt