Steel Vengeance coaster ‘is one for the record books’
For years, Fred SANDUSKY— Grubbworked to repair the beaten, battered tracks on woodenroller coasters, often revisiting the same ride year after year.
Thenhegot anidea: Create a new type of coaster track, a combination ofwood and steel, that wouldn’t require asmuch maintenance. And thenhegot another idea: Create an all-steel track, and set it atop an existing wooden structure, for a smoother, more thrilling ride.
He turned those two ideas intoa thriving business— one that visitors to Cedar Point will get to experience firsthand next spring.
“Long story short, we cameup with this new track to replace the traditional wood track,” said Grubb, who was building houses andconstructingzooexhibits 20 years ago and nowhelms one of theworld’s premiere roller coaster designandconstruction firms, RockyMountain Construction.
The company is in the final stages of transforming Cedar Point’s monster wooden coaster, the ride formerly known as Mean Streak, into a wood-steel hybrid known as Steel Vengeance, which will be the tallest and fastest in theworld. It is scheduled to debut in early May.
It will be RockyMountain Construction’s 12th roller coaster, which includes both new builds and reconstructions.
Already, anticipation for the ride has reached a fever pitch, with some enthusiasts predicting it will be the best coaster in the park and RMC’s most thrilling ride yet.
During a public event at CedarPoint inAugust, Grubb promised coaster fans that they would not be disappointed. “This is the biggest undertaking RMC has taken on. It’s a huge, mammoth roller coaster. It has more tricks, more elements than we could even name. This coaster is one for the record books.”
Rocky Mountain Construction, which started in Grubb’s garage in 2001, has grown rapidly, nowwith 120 full-time employees and an 80,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Idaho. The company has five coasters in the works for 2018.
Grubb frequently partners withwell-knowncoaster engineer Alan Schilke. Their rides are unique in the industry because of their patented track:
■ Their first track creation, dubbed Topper Track, consists of a metal rectangular box mounted atop laminated wood, which allows for less wear and tear than traditionalwoodtrack, easier maintenanceandasmoother ride.
■ A second invention, called I-Box, is an entirely metal track shaped like a capital I, with a smooth, flat surface that can bemounted on an existing wood frame — an alternative to traditional tubular steel coaster track. This iswhat has been installed atop the massive Mean Streak structure at Cedar Point.
■ And, new in 2018: Raptor track, a single-rail, allsteel coaster track that RMC is building from the ground up at two parks, California’s Great America and Six Flags Fiesta Texas.
Six Flags took a gamble on Grubb first, hiring him to transformTexas Giant, a wooden coaster at Six Flags Over Texas outside Dallas that had fallen out of favor with riders. RMC replaced the track and added extra height, speed and a steeper first hill. The result: AmusementTodayawardedthe ride aGolden Ticket for best new ride in 2011.
Since then, RMC has remade or made-fromscratch numerous highly regarded coasters includingGoliath at Six FlagsGreat America outside Chicago, TwistedColossus at Six Flags Magic Mountain near Los Angeles and Lightning Rod at Dollywood in Tennessee, among others.
All thewhile, coaster fans in and around Ohio were getting impatient, eager for Grubb and his team to bring their talents to Cedar Point. Finally, in August 2016, the park announced itwas shutteringMean Streak, the massive wooden coaster at the back of the park. Originally built in 1991, the coaster had lost its appeal withmany riders because of its rough ride.
RMC crews started working on the ride last fall — though Cedar Point didn’t officially acknowledge the coaster transformation until August of this year.
RMC has added 44 feet to the top hill, which, at 205 feet, will make Steel Vengeance the highest hybrid coaster in the world. It will also be the fastest (at 74 mph), steepest (90 degree first hill) and longest (5,740 feet), with the most inversions (four).
Traditional wood coasters, for the most part, can’t support inversions. Kings Island’s Son of Beast was an exception, built in 2000 with a 90-foot loop – butwas eventually torn down after a series of injuries.
“Steel is so much stronger,” said Grubb. “It allows us to put all these elements and different tricks in there. We can do a lot of elements within thewoodcoaster with this new track.”
Richard Munch, a Cleveland-area architect who co-founded the American Coaster Enthusiasts in 1978, said some purists don’t like what RockyMountain Construction is doing. They call hiswood-steelhybrids “Frankenstein rides.”
“They say he’s ruining the classic coaster,” saidMunch.
He dismisses their criticism, however, arguing that the industry only survives with change. “The very first roller coaster was two railroad tracks with a car on it,” he said.
Back in the 1980s, he said, oldwood coasterswere too expensive to maintain and “were being torn down left and right.”
Not anymore. Now they can be retrofitted and improved.
“Roller coasters have gone through an evolution over the last 100 years,” he said. “And it’s a welcome evolution because it continues to bring roller coasters to the people.”
Munch has been on several Rocky Mountain Construction coasters, and says they’re all intense, with nonstop thrills. He said he prefers a ride that allows him to catch his breath partway through. But Grubb’s rides don’t often offer that.
“You come off one of his rides and say, ‘What justhappened?’” said Munch, who described Grubb, 58, as an adrenaline junkie, who loves speed boats and dune buggies and other high-thrill activities. “And his rides show it.”
Munch added: “It’s a good time for roller coaster enthusiasts. We’ve come so far in the last decade. These rides do things that 20 years ago you never could have anticipated.”