Specific Type: Impulse Coaster
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For the 1997 season, Six Flags Great America announced that the Gurnee, Illinois park would be receiving from Premier Rides a new type of launched shuttle-looping coaster. The new ride, dubbed Mr. Freeze, would join two similar steel coasters to be installed the same year at other Six Flags parks. Unfortunately, that year came and went and Six Flag’s Illinois park failed to receive the shuttle coaster. Five years ahead, however, not receiving that coaster may have just ultimately paid off. For 2001, Great America announced the addition of two shiny-new shuttle coasters which would take the Mr. Freeze concept a step or two further with the very latest in coaster technology; both featuring vertical reverse tracks, both inverted below the track and one of those rides taking the concept another step ahead by utilizing Linear Induction Motors to launch the ride off. The two scream machines did indeed debut in 2001, under the names Deja Vu and V2: Vertical Velocity. While Deja Vu features more of what you'd probably expect to find on a shuttle coaster - inversions, the LIM-launchedV2 shuttles riders on a non-looping course between two vertical spikes, one of those containing one of the world's few completely-vertical twists. Déjà vu has been since removed from the park, but park goers can still enjoy a similar experience on Vertical Velocity.
Vertical Velocity comes from Switzerland's Intamin AG as one of only four like it in America, the first being Six Flags Worlds of Adventure (now Geauga Lake)'s Steel Venom which now operates at Dorney Park as Possessed, the second being V2 at Great America’s sister park,Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (which has the front spike angled at 45 degrees instead of 90), the third being Wicked Twister at Cedar Point (which has twists on both spikes), and last but not least, Steel Venom at Valleyfair. V2 riders board a 13-row, 26-passenger train before the ride starts off on a first LIM launch ahead. After climbing a portion of the forward spike, the speed wears off and the train falls backwards through the station area. Hitting a second period of LIM acceleration, the Vertical Velocity begins as riders are thrust up a good percentage of the 185-foot 90-degree steep back spike. Falling forwards, passengers are swept along the horizontal straightaway again as another moment of Linear Induction gets the speed up to a maximum 68 miles per hour and carries the train up the vertical twist. Riders get to watch the sky rotate 360 degrees as they spiral upwards and then get to experience the same maneuver in reverse. V2 rockets in reverse again and hits the straight vertical back tower once again to send passengers climbing backwards and plunging forwards through the station. After partially ascending the forwards climb once more, the train backs into the station area and slows to a final halt. |
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