Diary at PTM Day 2: The Tallest and Fastest Rollercoasters

As I am working on my mid-Atlantic roller coaster and water park story I did some research that only a visual learner would think of. I was looking at parks like Kennywood and Sixflags Great Adventure Youtube videos showing the point of view of a rider. I had the same anticipation to get to the top of the first hill and nervousness when waiting for the ride to launch from 0 to 60 in a few seconds. So because they are only videos, they cannot capture how the speed feels and how fast the ride is in miles per hour. So I went to the websites to see the numbers. Looking at theme park websites, I noticed they all used adjectives such as, the tallest, fastest, the only, the unique, in describing their roller coasters. I wanted to figure out “Is the Nitro really the fastest? Or is it the Phantom’s Revenge?” Or even, “What if it’s not even in this country?” So I did some digging and I came up with Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket Awards. Amusement Today is a news source that catalogs entrepreneurial happenings in the roller coaster business as well as  debuts in the industry and its parks. El Toro, Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, came at the top for the best and fastest wooden coaster because it reaches a top speed of 70 mph and is 181 feet tall with a 176-foot drop. While Formula Rossa, Ferrari World in Dubai, is the fastest steel-framed coaster that goes from 0 to 149.1 mph in 4.9 seconds with the use of a hydraulic launch system. Other coasters are ranked highly such as The Nitro at 80 mph (Six Flags Great Adventure) and the Intimidator 305 at 90 mph (Kings Dominion.) So I think it may be fair to say that the quality of the ride is not necessarily the top speed but the experience of the ride as a whole. This information has helped my story because I didn’t know that much about roller coasters before I started my research. Now I can say I know more about amusements in the mid-Atlantic area as well as around the world such as the Schlitterbahn water park in Texas and Ferrari World in Dubai. In the future I would like to look more into the companies that make the roller coasters and their machinery like Instamin and Gravity Group. This is a subculture that I would never have tapped into if it weren’t for this story and I’m glad I know more information about the amazing feats people achieve in order to produce speed and recreation.