SANDUSKY, Ohio — Roller coaster fans will have another reason to get excited for the season next year as Cedar Point is at work on constructing Top Thrill 2.
This coaster is scheduled to be completed in 2024 and will replace the Top Thrill Dragster at the Sandusky amusement park. It promises to be even more intense than the original.
The Top Thrill 2 is on track to be the tallest and fastest triple-launch strata coaster in the world, and roller coaster lover Laura Bloomensaat, can’t wait to give it a shot.
“I really always liked Top Thrill Dragster,” she said. “Going over that first, but now you’re gonna have two spikes. So that’s like way cool.”
She has been riding coasters at Cedar Point since she was a kid.
“This is our happy place,” she said.
That type of joy is a feeling the design team wants to continue with their goal of bringing a whole racing experience to life with the redesigned ride.
Clayton Lawrence, corporate creative producer at Cedar Fair, said this coaster is meant to acknowledge that the Top Thrill is world famous and, at its time, was the top thrill in the world.
“And it still is,” Lawrence said. “We’re reclaiming that.”
There is also a planned racing-themed midway, which will make this the first ride at the park to combine story and entertainment with the attraction.
Crews on Tuesday were placing the first column of the base structure of the future 420-foot tall spike tower, and the park’s vice president of maintenance and construction, Michael Maney, said it’s all upward from here when building the 850,000 pound structure.
“It’s double the ride length, for sure,” Maney said. “Before you had the singular launch, over the top hat, to the brake section, and it was pretty much a 17 second ride and you’re done.”
The upgraded ride will clock in at about two minutes, beginning with a 74 mile-per-hour launch and a backward launch topping 100 miles per hour. The ride reaches a maximum speed of 120 miles per hour.
Antonio Zamperla is the president and CEO of The Zamperla Group, which is the company responsible for engineering and manufacturing the new ride, with a two-year timetable.
There’s a formula, he said, for a successful coaster.
“Safety first,” he said. “And then, of course, a lot of adrenaline and a lot of thrills, and this will give you a top-notch thrill.”
He would know, as rides like these run in his family.
“I’ve been actually forced from my father to ride coasters and go to amusement parks since I was a kid,” he said.
One 11-year-old coaster lover, Harry Knapp, said he has a trick for navigating fears of large coasters.
“Tell yourself you’re not going to die,” he said.
He’s following in his father’s footsteps and riding roller coasters with his family and is excited to try the world’s first and only dual-tower vertical speedway.
“Ya know, I’m a thrill seeker,” Knapp said. “So I think I could take it.”