Specific Type: Multi Inversion Coaster
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When Arrow Dynamics' first Corkscrew coaster opened in 1975 as the first ever modern steel ride to venture upside-down, a new fascination took off for coasters with newer and more inversions. Corkscrew featured two inversions, and the next year the record grew to three. By the mid 1980s, the record had doubled, at six, and then 1995 brought the first eight-inversion coaster. In 2002, the competition was once more blown away when riders headed through ten inversions on the appropriately-named Colossus. The new coaster makes its home in Chertsey, England at Thorpe Park, a theme park just getting into the coaster race. And Colossus is just the thing Thorpe needs to speed ahead. Created by the ever-popular coaster company Intamin AG of Switzerland, the new multi-inversion thrill ride flips riders through a Vertical Loop, a dual-inverting Cobra Roll, a pair of Corkscrews and a total of five Heartline rolls, all in an Atlantis-themed ride setting.
Colossus begins its track circuit with a climb out of the station to a 99-foot height... The Colossal record-breaking is yet to come. A diving 9-story U-turn taken at a 50-degree angle gets the ride going and 45 miles an hour to complete the first of the record-smashing ten inversions - the Vertical Loop. Exiting the loop, a surprise speed hop leads the ride below ground and up into the first half of the Cobra Roll, twisting thrill riders through a serpentine Sidewinder followed by a downwards Diving Loop - ending, once again, with a subterranean dive. Up next on the inversion schedule: the Double Corkscrew. For the first leg of this twice-over inversion duo, riders spiral over the pre-Cobra Roll track, then get flung into the air once again in the second identical Corkscrew. A 180-degree banked curve takes adventurers back under the coaster's first drop and around to enter the ride's wildest inversion chaos of all. The train flips over not once, not twice, not three times, but four consecutive times for a quartet of rapid-fire Heartline Rolls. If you're a Heartline Roll fanatic, Colossus will take you into Heartroll Heaven. The coaster follows up the quadruple inversions with a second banked 180-degree U-turn swinging around the far end of the track layout, then throws in a final Heartline Roll finale to round out the inversion count before braking to a stop. If you like inversions, Thorpe Park is the place to be! |
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