![]() ![]() It’s an unusual layout when travelling in either direction, with a lot of stop and start action on multiple block sections as the ride winds its way down inside the pyramid shaped building. This indoor Vekoma did actually start life in 1996 as a backwards experience though, finally losing that claim in 2013 to a bit of a rebrand and a train turnaround to conventional mode. World’s first!, with a caveat – in the dark. It still made it better than your average two hills and a corner layout though! #8 X:\ No Way Out – Thorpe Park (UK) What could have been some impressive backwards airtime in the first drop and subsequent big camelback ended up rather bouncy and jarring, taking the edge off proceedings. I had noticed on arrival that they had turned the back two cars of the train around, something previously undiscovered as far as I was aware (along with the new name and some fountains) and this revelation made the waiting seem far more worthwhile.Īs it turned out, bit of a rough one. It was a total ordeal for me to get on this ride as the place was, in the true style of all minor Japanese parks, ridiculously quiet and they took half a day to get it up and running. #9 Music Go-Star – Miroku no Sato (Japan) Accelerating to 100Mph before quickly seeing the ground run away from you sounds like quite the exhilarating experience, but although they’re rather special, I don’t particularly rate these straight lines very highly as coasters. It was originally designed as a Reverse Freefall coaster with a forwards facing launch up a vertical spike leading to, as the name would imply, a freefall in reverse, but in 2010 Tower of Terror became the first of the two models that was modified to begin the journey backwards. This attraction is no longer with us, though the taller American brother can still be enjoyed (twice over) at Six Flags Magic Mountain. #10 Tower of Terror II (defunct) – Dreamland (Australia) Let’s see how much of an impact they made on me. The focus today will be on any coaster that goes backwards for at least 50% of the layout (ideally more) and, as usual, those that I’ve personally tried out. Personally I’ll advocate it all day long, as I relish every unique experience I can find in the coasting world and the simple action of turning a seat around can be both a tremendous enhancement and a well earned selling point for any attraction. I think there’s a bit of a stigma attached to the concept currently, either being seen as a bit of a gimmick, an oversimplified marketing ploy or perhaps something to be feared amongst the age old expectation of thrill rides making people feel nauseous – not looking where you’re going will likely make those susceptable to motion sickness feel even worse. In fact there are only a few major coasters out in the world that can offer it at the moment and based on personal experience so far – we need more of it! I’ve elaborated before on the negative effect that anticipation can have on certain coaster elements and what better way to completely remove any pre-emption than to turn the ship around and physically stop guests from seeing what’s up next? Which way is which? But what about starting out backwards in the station, sometimes even staying that way for good? That’s a lot harder to come by. The concept of having both forwards and backwards has seen a major resurgence in recent years following on from the Shuttle Loops and Boomerangs of old, with compact launch coaster designs permeating many markets. Racing coasters are rare and King's Island is lucky to have one, but there is room for improvement in the lift hill system, operations and even design if they ever do a major rehab of the coaster.Forwards seems to be the recommended direction of travel for most things in life, but some rollercoasters like to buck that trend. They may have one train operation (justified due to walk-on), but they actually paid extra staff to let it race all day long for the customers. Plus there is the issue of the missing final hill on Racer because of the X-Base walkthrough.Īnd finally, KD was operating both sides of the coaster from open to close. Both Racer 75 and Thunder Road have/had a surprise tunnel finale which Racer never had. Racer 75 has a wonderful floater hill as the 3rd hill versus the bigger hill of Racer. They trains stay side by side longer because they don't have the split after the 3rd hill like Racer. Its interesting how much they improved the design of this coaster versus racer when they built Racer 75 and the former Thunder Road. The coaster almost always races! Even if the ops let the trains go about 20 seconds apart, they still sync. The lift hill syncs the 2 trains using variable lift hill speeds so they reach the top at the same time. This year King's Dominion put a new system on their Racer 75. Even though there is another Racer topic or 2, I believe this deserves its own. ![]()
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