#with the official announcement im much more with the idea of the vertical spike but i know im gonna have to hype myself up lolol

[zukos-tiny-burnt-ear]

Ok I'm literally vibrating with excitement over this piece of news so I'm gonna talk about it here (sorry long post)

So, if you're a thrill ride/amusement park enthusiast and/or are from Ohio (particularly the Sandusky area), you've probably heard a couple years ago when Cedar Point had a malfunction with their tallest roller coaster, Top Thrill Dragster, and had to shut it down for the season. The next season it did not reopen, and the park announced the ride as we know it would not be opening again. Since then (which I believe was the 2022 season), there's been a lot of construction around the site of the coaster, and lots of speculation done by fans as to what would happen to the ride. The only info we were given was that they were working on coming up with "a new formula for thrills" for the 2024 season

Some background info, Top Thrill is the first of its kind, known as a strata coaster, or a full circuit roller coaster with a max height (or drop) between 400-499 feet. Top Thrill has one huge hill that measures in at 420 feet tall (very intimidating to look at lol, but also very iconic). So Top Thrill, along with several other coasters at the park (such as Maverick, or Millennium Force) were designed by the Swiss manufacturer Intamin. Intiman's rides (at least at CP) are known for being really popular, but a bit problematic, either slow moving lines, or they face a lot of down time and maintenance issues. Eventually Cedar Fair as a company (the ones who own Cedar Point, Kings Island, and many other parks in North America) stopped working with Intamin entirely, particularly after a failed water ride was put in at Cedar Point (this was Shoot the Rapids, which operated from 2010-2015). Anyway, since the park is no longer working with Top Thrill's original manufacturer, they decided to turn to a new one for revamping the ride, and are now working with Zamperla

So like I said, a lot of enthusiasts have been speculating on what the park has planned for this beloved coaster. The general consensus based on what we can see construction-wise at the park and by satellite view, is that they would be adding a large vertical spike to the ride, and making it a multi-launch ride

(For reference, that'd look something like this)

Nothing had been confirmed by the park or the manufacturer, but a couple weeks ago, Cedar Point posted on their official Instagram that they would be officially announcing what they were doing with the ride on August 1st. However, today (July 31st), Zamperla jumped the gun and made a blog post about the ride (though they've since deleted it, a lot of enthusiasts saw it already). And the plan is in fact to add a 420-foot-tall vertical spike, doing a 3-launch system (first forward, then back, the forward and over the top-hat)

Personally, I was hoping they may have done something different, as those sort of launches intimidate me lolol, but I'm excited to see the finished product and hopefully get a chance to ride when they unveil it next season!