Cedar Point, much-anticipated new Top Thrill ride, opens Saturday with new rules

Adrenaline junkies have imagined this moment for months.

The newest ride at Cedar Point, one of the nation's oldest amusement parks, is set to debut to the public on Saturday. Billed as the world’s "tallest and fastest triple-launch" strata-coaster, the Top Thrill Dragster has been renamed Top Thrill 2, but the new version is likely to be the Midwest destination's No. 1 attraction.

A summer visit to the Sandusky, Ohio, amusement park has been a rite of passage, badge of courage, and favorite summer camp outing for Michiganders for generations.

"I’m sure the new ride will be popular," said Greg Calbeck, Pleasant Ridge's easygoing assistant recreation director, who usually plans two, all-day city summer camp trips to Cedar Point. "It will be interesting to see how they’ve modified it, and how it will be different from the old one."

The ride’s debut and park’s opening day is coincidentally on May 4 — which has become a "Star Wars" pun for science fiction fans, "May the fourth be with you," instead of "May the Force be with you" — and hopeful potential are ready to feel some actual G-forces.

But more than a new thrill, this year's reimagined coaster illustrates what theme parks like Cedar Point are up against, competing to push the limits of "taller, longer, faster," while, at the same time, balancing it against the challenges of keeping ever-increasing lines moving and riders safe.

Unlike most of Cedar Point's new rides, this one is actually a new iteration of the record-breaking Top Thrill Dragster. The park shortened the ride’s name to Top Thrill 2, which has a double meaning because it's the second generation, but also now has two 420-foot tall towers, instead of just one.

Moreover, some news organizations, including the Wall Street Journal, have termed the intense competition to offer the most death-defying rides a "roller coaster arms race." And others — such as "Inside Edition," which previewed the Top Thrill 2 — have questioned whether the rides have become "too darn scary."

On top of that, new safety rules prohibiting loose objects may prove more inconvenient and costly.

Still, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to queue up this summer to launch more than 400 feet in the air at 100-plus-mph, free-fall backward, shoot up again — and plunge, spiral-twisting headfirst back down to earth, feeling the wind in their face and a death-defying rush.

"Top Thrill 2 delivers everything a thrill-seeker could want, including staggering height and speed," Carrie Boldman, vice president and general manager of Cedar Point, said this week. "We can’t wait for our guests to take their very first lap."

An accident and lawsuit

The original Top Thrill Dragster worked like a slingshot.

Hydraulic pressure shot you down a half-mile track, tipped you over the top, and sent you racing down the other side. It would take you to 120 mph in 4 seconds and directly up, almost as high as Detroit's Penobscot skyscraper.

Cedar Point didn't initially reveal why it retired the Dragster after 19 years or what would replace it, only that "more details" were coming. It had been a ride that visitors loved, but also, over the years was plagued by mechanical problems.

In 2021, a piece of metal the size of a hand fell off the ride and struck a then-44-year-old Swartz Creek woman in the head. Ohio officials said it was an L-shaped bracket that sat at the back of the train car. While the ride was in descent, the bracket hit the coaster’s track and came off the coaster train. 

The accident led to a widely reported lawsuit, which, some speculate led to the ride's 2022 retirement.

Last year, there was wild guessing by eager fans about what the ride would be and hype from the amusement park, which had shrouded details in secret.

It ultimately was spoiled, however, by an early, accidental — and accurate — release.

How Top Thrill 2 works

Top Thrill 2 also will work like a slingshot, but uses what the park calls an "all-new linear synchronous motor launch system," with riders peeling out down a straightaway reaching 74 mph, racing toward the sky on the original 420-foot-tall tower, long nicknamed the "top hat."

Then, riders experience near weightlessness during the so-called rollback, which is the moment when the car’s momentum isn’t enough to make it up and over the tower.

In the ride's previous iteration, before it was modified to incorporate an intentional rollback, the cars sometimes wouldn’t make it over the top, and they would unintentionally roll back. But it turned out that some riders hoped that would happen.

During the car's second launch it reaches 101 mph.

Than, after going over the top, the car dives into a 270-degree spiral, and crosses the finish line.

In addition to the ride's mechanical problems, other parks introduced rides that were taller and faster.

The Kingda Ka — which opened in 2005 at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey and is similar to Dragster — is 456 feet and 128 mph. It was followed by Formula Rossa in 2010 at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. It goes even faster than Kingda Ka at 240 mph.

Top Thrill 2, however, is reclaiming a record as the only tall coaster with a dual-tower vertical speedway.

Beach resort to Roller Coast

Cedar Point, owned by Cedar Fair, opened in 1870 on Lake Erie's south shore, a middle-class, bathhouse vacation destination. A peninsula with a relaxing beach, the area was so named for its abundance of cedar trees and it jutted into the lake.

And just before the turn of the century, a roller coaster, the Switchback Railway, was added.

Before long second roller coaster, along with a hotel and other attractions — and gradually, through financial ups and downs — the park installed more and more thrill rides, including several that have set world records.

In more recent times, the amusement park has long dubbed itself "America's Roller Coast," and boasts 18 "world-class" coasters — giving children seeking to face their fears and who have reached the minimum height requirement to ride, a modern rite of passage.

Calbeck, 37, said he grew up in Michigan making annual trips to Cedar Point.

His first visit, he said, was with a church group when he was 11 or 12. It was a lot like, he said, the trips that he organizes for the city's summer camp. It was fun, he recalled, because he had never ridden roller coasters, and his friend, who had, told him which ones were the best.

What made the rides so thrilling?

"The excitement of the unknown," Calbeck said, adding that he has loved the 364-acre amusement park ever since. He enjoys, he said, the "thrill of all the spins and going fast." He's especially eager, he said, to try out Top Thrill 2.

He said: "I remember the old one, which was fast — and quick."

Calbeck's description, a couple of decades later with the instillation of even more terrifying rides, is an understatement because when the Dragster debuted at Cedar Point, it was — without rival — the fastest and tallest in the world, so quick, it could blow the contacts right out of your eyes.

Lockers, new safety rules

Some fans have expressed on social media that they like the novelty of Top Thrill's second tower, but they wish Cedar Point would have pushed the thrill boundaries just a little more by making the ride just a bit taller — and faster.

Instead, the park adopted some new safety rules.

Cedar Point explained: After testing the new version of the ride, it decided to impose a stricter policy.

Part of the reason for this might be that last year, a season-pass holder from metro Detroit said he was hit in the head by a loose iPhone while riding the Maverick roller coaster. The impact caused the rider, he told the Free Press, to start bleeding and led to a concussion diagnosis the next day.

The incident made national headlines.

Last month, the park officials told riders that it knows they are excited to ride but wanted to make sure visitors had "all the information" they needed, including the minimum height requirement — 52 inches — and that they must be able to fit into the seats with a safety restraint.

Glasses are OK but must be "tightly secured" with a strap. Riders can’t hold them in place.

Loose shoes — like, flip-flops ― are a no-no, and so is going barefoot.

Items that could fall out of a pocket are not permitted on the ride, with riders passing through a metal detector at the entrance to check. The park specifically noted this includes: "cellphones, keys, lighters, lipstick/lip gloss."

And waist packs, zippered pockets or pockets that fasten to store the items, just aren't enough to secure items, the park said. Safety, the park said, is its "first priority," and the integration of lockers into the queue — like for the Steel Vengeance ride — was not possible.

So loose items "must be left with a non-rider or in a locker," and "there are no loose article bins on the station platform." This means if you go with a group, you might want to take turns riding and holding on to each other’s things or bring a few extra dollars to spend on renting a locker "near the entrance."

It's not clear whether the new rules will make the ride wait even longer.

Ideally, Calbeck said, a roller coaster rider wants "a long fun ride," and a short line to get on it. But that's probably as wishful as asking young summer camp kids to get back to the bus on time. Inevitably, the rec department assistant director said, a few of them will try "to squeeze in one last ride at the back of the park."

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.