Specific Type: Wooden, Jr.
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Quassy Amusement Park is a small, traditional amusement park that has now been around for over 100 years. Starting as a resort and trolley park in 1908, it didn’t even become a true amusement park until after World War II, where in the late 1970s the park finally began adding a number of rides and attractions. Since then, the park has remained a small family-oriented facility, bringing in smaller rides and attractions to complement its swimming, picnicking, arcade, and other facilities. The park has decided to enter the new decade, however, with its biggest addition yet, a family-friendly wooden coaster.
The park has been trying to add in a new wooden coaster for several years now, but back in 2007, park owners decided to back away from their plans to build a new wooden coaster for the 2008 season for unknown reasons. Then, in early 2009, Quassy got in touch with the Gravity Group, the company perhaps best known for their sprawling mammoth of a coaster, the Voyage at Holiday World, to build them a new roller coaster, and once again began seeking permission to build the new ride. Initial announcements of the park working with the Gravity Group had many both confused and excited about the prospect of the park getting a big, new-age wooden coaster, but once the artwork, layout, and animated ride video were released, it was all made clear. Rather than a massive, sprawling wooden coaster like the Voyage, Quassy was getting a family-sized wooden coaster, but it would retain the signature twists and airtime hills the company is known for. Despite all the plans, artwork, and layout being completed by early 2010, construction could not yet begin for legal reasons. After a tough battle involving numerous delays, the park finally announced in August 2010 that their new wooden coaster would finally be coming to the park! Sadly, the addition of the new coaster meant that the park had to clear out space for it, and the parks classic Allan Herschell Mad Mouse had to be removed, the second wild mouse coaster to be removed from the park during its history. When it came to naming the coaster, Quassy went through a unique approach and challenged local elementary and middle schools to submit potential names for the coaster. When it was all said and done, multiple schools actually submitted the same entry, and after little deliberation, the final name was chosen. Dubbed the Wooden Warrior, the coaster is the smallest ever built by the Gravity Group, but is not just your average pint-sized wooden coaster. Rather than the standard out-and-back or figure eight style most family-oriented wooden coasters go for, with straight hills and drops and high, flat turnarounds, Wooden Warrior has a T-shaped layout, with twists and turns and airtime hills for everyone; it’s a classic Gravity Group design shrunk down to size for the park. The train will also be just one of a small handful to feature the Gravity Groups new Timberliner rolling-stock, with a six-car, 12-passenger train for the ride. After boarding one of the new Timberliner cars, the train dips and turns slightly to the left before immediately starting its climb up the 35 foot tall lift hill. Cresting the lift hill, the track banks to the right and drops down through a horseshoe shaped turnaround, before rising up for the rides big drop. Plummeting to the ground, the tiny trains will hit their top speed of 35 mph as they then fly over a small speed hill that is sure to give everyone a dose of airtime. The track then banks hard to the left and rises up and over another hill that will surely separate butts from seats as it drops back down to the ground once again. The Warrior then banks left again and turns slightly as it rise up and then twists and dips back to the right through another “horseshoe”-shaped turnaround. Halfway through the ride now, the track again drops back down to the warrior’s battlefield on terra-firma in anticipation of its climax. In what can only be described as a double-up, double-down combination, riders will be subjected to three pops of airtime as the train traverses a hill stacked on top of an existing hill. Dropping out of the last dip in the double-dip, the track curves down and around to the left and rises over its last speed hill, crossing over the brake run in the process. One last drop down to the ground and a tight, heavily banked turnaround to the right brings all warriors to a stop, thus ending their 1,200-foot dash through Quassy. |
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