Riding Podracers

October 6, 2006 | Filed Under My Ramblings

BAM! Intamin’s brand of hydraulically launched coasters are appropriately marketed as “Rocket Coasters.” Super Amazing Technology - compressed nitrogen gas, hydraulic fluid and a load of cable - fling coaster trains from 0-whatever in no-time-at-all. Two examples are Xcelerator (the first of the kind) at Knott’s Berry Farm and Stealth (the newest) at Thorpe Park. Lets see how they match up, Top Trumps style:

Xcelerator		Stealth
2202	Length (ft)	1312
205	Height	205
82	Speed (mph)	79.5
2.3	Acceleration (secs)	2.5

So as you can see, the prototype is listed as being a little faster - interesting! Probably just a bit of imaginative marketing, because these are essentially clones of each other. So what are the differences? Well, Xcelerator goes out on the left and after the drop goes through a couple of overbanked turns. Stealth goes out on the right and returns over a bunny-hop. Not a big deal if you ask me, the overbanks on Xcelerator just felt like filler anyway.The thrill is in the launch, and I can’t wait. It really is breath-takingly good. Of course, these are just little brothers to TTD and Kingda Ka, but they are thrilling all the same and I can’t wait to ride Stealth tomorrow! (I just hope it isn’t broken, these models are rather injury prone).