Cedar Point closes Top Thrill 2, its newest record-setting thrill. What it means

Just a week after the much-anticipated Top Thrill 2 roller coaster opened to the public, Cedar Point announced an "extended closure" so "mechanical modifications" could be made to the record-breaking thrill ride.

"We share your disappointment that we are not able to operate it this weekend," Cedar Point said online Sunday. "We will do everything possible to reopen Top Thrill 2 as soon as we are confident we can deliver the ride experience that our guests deserve."

The Ohio amusement park did not say when that would be, nor did it identify what was wrong with the ride.

But ride enthusiasts quickly took to social media to post photos, speculate about what happened, and offer their opinions on the ride, the manufacturer — and what should happen next. What does it mean, they’ve even asked, for the future of a merged Cedar Point-Six Flags company?

The shutdown, some said, wasn't a good look at all.

Among their concerns was the long-term shutdown of a major new ride at Kennywood in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, just southeast of Pittsburgh, that last month became the focus of a legal battle in which season-pass holders are alleging the park knew the ride wouldn’t be ready but sold them passes anyway.

Kennywood is owned by a different company, but there are similar parallels.

Cedar Point said that once the Top Thrill 2 modification is finished, it, the manufacturer, and a "third-party ride inspection partner" will conduct "a thorough review before approving both the modification and the reopening of the ride."

Record-breaking roller coaster

Summer visits to the Sandusky, Ohio, amusement park have long been a rite of passage, badge of courage, and favorite summer camp outing for Michiganders, and this year, the re-imagined ride Top Thrill 2 was set to be the new centerpiece of the experience.

The ride has been billed as the world’s "tallest and fastest triple-launch" strata-coaster.

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

But it also has raised some eyebrows among roller coaster-watchers who wondered whether theme parks and ride manufacturers were going too far in pushing the limits of the rides in the name of big thrills and were doing enough to keep people safe.

The ride's name, Top Thrill 2, suggested it was the second generation of the Top Thrill Dragster, which also debuted as a record-setter and was plagued with problems. It also referred to the fact that it had two, 420-foot-tall towers, instead of just one.

The park initially said the race-car-themed ride "delivers everything a thrill-seeker could want" and announced new safety rules prohibiting riders from carrying loose items, including phones, that could fall out of pockets.

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's train. 

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

More recently, local news outlets have been reporting the closure, which is spreading online, and could hurt both confidence in the Top Thrill 2 ride — and Cedar Point's ability to deliver a thrilling, roller coaster experience.

Top Thrill 2 closing speculation

Roller coaster fans are a fanatical bunch in search of the latest adrenaline rush and also clues — and conspiracies — to what is going on with thrill rides before anyone else. They check out whatever information they can, and they draw their conclusions.

Some have been posting photos of the idled Top Thrill 2 and what they could see — or think they see — such as lights "blaring in the maintenance shed" along with commentary: "Hopefully we are looking at an easy fix!"

Speculation about the new ride started last year, with potential rides flyspecking photos of the park for any details about what it would be like and even taking road trips to the North American offices of Zamperla, the ride’s manufacturer.

Ultimately, unofficial information about the ride spoiled the company’s late summer announcement.

In November, leaders of Cedar Fair, which owns Cedar Point, and Six Flags announced a merger between the two companies. Six Flags shareholders voted in March to approve the deal, in which Cedar Fair shareholders would own 51.2% of the new company, with Six Flags shareholders, 48.8%.

But limited details about the weekend shutdown have spurred a new round of speculation.

Some Cedar Point fans poor-mouthed Zamperla, an Italian roller coaster design and manufacturing company. The same manufacturer, they pointed out, was responsible for the ballyhooed Wild Mouse coaster, which debuted at Cedar Point last year with problems.

The Akron Beacon Journal reported last year that the ride stopped abruptly — twice — and passengers "had to be rescued" when cars stopped at one of the coaster’s highest points and amid winding turns closer to the ground.

Still, other fans praised Zamperla on Facebook as a tenacious company and resisted any comparisons between Top Thrill 2 and the Steel Curtain ride at Kennywood, which is shut down for the entire season, hoping that the Cedar Point ride won’t take as long to modify, test and reopen.

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