Coaster capital? It’s a real scream

EVERYTHING will be OK, I tell myself, if I can just look towards the horizon. Stare out at peaceful, calming Lake Erie, and I can happily block out what’s about to come – a 215ft plunge towards earth on board Valravn, the new king of dive coasters.

But it’s as Valravn enters its most horrifying point that the flaw in my plan becomes apparent. When the car is hurtling to earth, it is impossible to look out at the horizon.

Valravn is the latest in a series of utterly terrifying rides at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. It bills itself as the rollercoaster capital of the world – and with good reason. There are 17 rides crammed on to a spit jutting out into the lake, and most of them are absolute monsters.

Valravn, below, is the latest and most gruesome, and it smashes all manner of dive coaster records – longest drop, fastest speed, most inversions, highest inversion. The climb before that first drop seems to go on for ever, while the twists and turns afterwards set the stomach churning and the heart racing. But it’s difficult to whimper when there’s a nine-year-old girl next to you screaming: ‘This is awesome!’

Some of the older coasters at the park seem relatively tame and cosy by comparison. The Corkscrew, for example, would be a big deal elsewhere, but here its low loops are small-fry.

So it’s no surprise that most battle-hardened visitors head for rides such as Top Thrill Dragster. It employs zero subtlety, firing riders up one side of a 400ft tower, then sending them hurtling back down at a 90-degree angle on the other side.

And it’s at this point that the intrepid adventurer gives way to the inner coward who’d prefer to take a soaking on the water rapids ride…