Mind Eraser
Specific Type: Suspended Looping Coaster
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During the 1980s and 90s, Darien Lake remained as a relatively small amusement park in northern New York, but as the decade progressed, things were about to be turned up a notch. In 1995, the rapidly growing Premier Parks bought Funtime Parks, the chain that had currently owned Darien Lake, Wyandot Lake Park, and Geauga Lake. Premier had not fear of investing lots of money in the parks they bought, and changes to Darien Lake began immediately.
In 1995, Funtime added the Skycoaster attraction over Fun Lake, and in 1996 replaced Adventure Land with Popeye’s Seapoart, adding in a plethora of new rides including a ferris wheel, train ride, submarine ride, ship themed play place, and new facilities. Between 1996 and 1999, the park then became the recipient of a new coaster each year, including Nightmare at Phantom Cave(1996), Mind Eraser (1997), Boomerang: Coaster to Coaster (1998), and Superman: Ride of Steel (1999). Built by Vekoma, the Mind Eraser is a Suspended Looping Coaster (SLC) model (689m Standard) clone seen at many parks throughout the world. In 1997, Darien Lake was the recipient of one of a trio of these Mind Eraser coasters added by Premier Parks, with the other two going to sister parks Six Flags New England and Six Flags Elitch Gardens. Two years prior, Six Flags America was the recipient of the first of the first Mind Eraser clone, bringing the Premier count up to four, a cloning trend that Six Flags would soon follow when they acquired Premier Parks in 1998. The ride starts off with a 115-foot climb up the rides lift hill, at which point the train banks to the right and swoops down in a curving drop towards the ground. Just feet above the ground, and reaching speeds of nearly 50 mph, the train ends its highly banked and swooping first drop, straightening out and then pulling up into a double-inversion called a Roll Over. The inversion essentially consists of a half-loop, followed by a reversed in-line roll (starting and ending upside down), and finishes with a half loop that runs parallel to the entrance of the inversion. From here, the track rises and banks almost completely sideways, putting the train nearly perpendicular to the ground before the train dives down to the left, just feet above the ground. Pulling out of this drop, the train enters its third inversion, the Sidewinder, also called an Immelman Loop. Exiting this inversion, the train twists to the right and pulls through a tight, 270-degree rightward helix that flows straight into a Double In-Line Twist, the last two inversions on the coaster. The train then rises slightly and banks heavily to the right again, dropping to the ground again before twisting and rising slightly into the final break run, ending the 2,260-foot long ride. |
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