Amusement Park Ride Breaks Seven World Records, Inverted

by Chris Owen on



As amusement park rides go, there are roller coasters and then there is the Gatekeeper, where riders sit as if on the wings of a plane 170 feet above ground. Experiencing sharp turns, inversions and rolls, Gatekeeper creates the feeling of weightlessness, sending riders turning and twisting at speeds of nearly 70 miles per hour.

Gatekeeper is the latest ride at Ohio’s Cedar Point amusement park, voted the Best Amusement Park in the World for 15 consecutive years by the readers of Amusement Today. Taking more than 12 million pounds of concrete to build, the Gatekeeper is the park’s premiere attraction but not the only coaster making up nearly 10 miles of track. Cedar Point boasts a whopping 16 different roller coasters with names like Wicked Twister, Raptor, Magnum XL-200 and the Corkscrew. But Gatekeeper is unique.

“GateKeeper is unlike anything our guests have experienced before,” said John Hildebrandt, Cedar Point’s Vice President and General Manager in a NorthwestOhio.com article.

Manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard of Switzerland, GateKeeper breaks seven world records, including the longest track (4,164 feet), tallest drop (164 feet) and most inversions of any wing roller coaster in the world.

Cedar Point Officially Announces New Roller Coaster For 2013

by Libby Zay on

Always seeking to break records, it looks as though Ohio’s Cedar Point will be building a new winged coaster projected to have the longest drop, fastest run and longest ride of its kind. The coaster, which is set up so riders are suspended in cars that hang out over both sides of the track, is the first coaster to be built at the park since Maverick debuted in 2007. Although rumors about a new coaster have been circulating for months, the news officially broke today when the amusement park put out a press release.

Expected to be completed for the summer of 2013, the ride is named “Gatekeeper” because a section of the ride will arch through two towers directly over the park’s admission gate. Riders will go on a two-minute and 40-second spin that hits speeds up to 67 mph on a 4,164-foot track that reaches heights of 170 feet.

Here’s how a press release describes the coaster: “Once riders crest the top of the 170-foot-tall lift hill, the coaster train will rotate 180 degrees to the right, turning riders upside down before plummeting a record 164 feet toward the ground at speeds reaching 67 mph. Then the train will enter a half loop, go through a half twist and curve out in the opposite direction from which it came. A towering 105-foot-tall camelback hill awaits just before riders glide through a 360-degree giant flat spin.”

Of course, all those numbers come with a cost: the new coaster and a redesigned front gate will cost the park approximately $30 million. According to the Sandusky Register, Cedar Point will also remove two rides – Space Spiral and Disaster Transport – to make room for the new coaster. When completed, the park will once again have 16 roller coasters, which was temporarily set back to 15 when Cedar Point began taking down Disaster Transport.