Magic Mountain 2013: "Full Throttle" terrain hugging launch coaster

[James]

Coasterforce's POV features a dubstep sound track on the backwards section O.O ... Even Thorpe haven't gone there (yet).

Wow, a theme park using a currently popular style of music to appeal to young people, whatever next. :

If they were to use music that is generally popular across the board then pop music would have been more suited.

Dubstep isn't as generally liked as other music genres. It just seems an odd genre to use. Although the whole audio at that point seems weird and random.

 

[Sam]

Park News - (11/19/13) An interesting bit of fallout from the Texas Giant accident has landed square in the middle of Magic Mountain. I’m told that new seat-belts have been added to the Goliath trains in addition to the ride’s existing lapbar restraint system. When our reader asked the ride ops why they were told they were added because of an “incident in Texas on a similar ride”.

When Texan restraints are popping, throughputs start dropping...

 

[BigAl]

From Screamscape:

2015 - Rumor - Iron Colossus - (1/6/14) At this point I’m fairly confident that we’ll see Colossus close sometime in 2014 in order to get transformed and upgraded into a new experience for the 2015 season, but the real question is the timeline. Has anyone heard anything more about when Colossus’ last days will be?
With “Colossus Backwards” promoted as a “limited time” 2014 attraction starting in Spring 2014, it remains to be seen if they will be able to continue to run Colossus throughout the Summer or if it will close down at the end of the backwards run promotion before the start of Summer. Anyone know more?

 

[Sam]

Park News - (2/15/14) I reached out to Sue Carpenter at Six Flags Magic Mountain this week to find out more about the Mooseburger Lodge project. According to Sue the old Mooseburger is no more. Starting March 22nd, when the park opens for daily operations, the restaurant will reopen as Full Throttle Sports Bar & Grill. The inside will have been completely gutted and renovated with a new sports enthusiast theme, with over 20 HDTV’s added to broadcast sports events to you from every direction.

European parks never seem to get top quality AV equipment like that. Imagine 20 HDTVs at Towers, even at Europa it's unlikely!

 

[Sam]

Bloke has recorded this slightly cringeworthy but charming rap as part of the campaign to, 'please, restore Revolution for its fortieth anniversary!'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H3v5lPNEhc

 

[Rob]

SFMM have announced that Colossus will close forever on August 16th this year. It is thought that this could mean RMC are getting their hands on it to create some form of 'Iron Colossus". Here's what Screamscape have to say about it:

Rumor - Iron Colossus - (6/3/14) The big news from Magic Mountain today is that new banners were spotted up in the park warning everyone to get their last rides in on Colossus, because after being king of the mountain for 36 years, Colossus will close forever on August 16th. If you’ve been following Screamscape for long enough, you know what this means… that Colossus will be given an I-Box transformation from Rocky Mountain Construction and reopen bigger and meaner as “Iron Colossus” or some other similar sounding name.
This represents an epic development opportunity for Six Flags Magic Mountain, as no one is quite sure just what to expect from RMC getting their hands on one of Six Flag’s massive racing coasters from the 70’s. It certainly will present an entirely different kind of challenge from what they have already succeeded with in transforming New Texas Giant and Iron Rattler. I’ve had a theory, I’ve shared with a VERY small list of individuals as far back as two years ago about what I had suspected Six Flags would be able to do with Colossus. Something big and something that would shatter an old coaster record that has never been broke yet.
I’ve kept this secret very close to the vest for all this time, because I didn’t want anyone to steal it, but with Colossus now confirmed to be closing, I will share it now. If RMC gets a hold of Colossus, it will change everything you ever thought you knew about the coaster. Don’t count on seeing it reopen as a racing creation… in fact, don’t even think about it having two separate tracks anymore. For my plan to work, the two tracks will become one, along with a possible second mid-ride trip up the lift hill, because if they do this thing right, the combined two track lengths would shatter the record for longest roller coaster, both steel and wooden at roughly 8,650 feet. (Each side of Colossus is 4,325 ft)
The longest steel coaster in the world is Steel Dragon 2000 in Japan at 8,133 feet and the longest wooden coaster in the world is The Beast at Kings Island at 7,359 feet. Wood or Steel, no matter how you slice it, a combined Iron Colossus would take the record away for a long LONG time. Or at least until Six Flags opts to take a similar route with American Eagle at Six Flags Great America, but since they are about ready to open Goliath, their own RMC custom coaster, I don’t see that scenario playing out anytime soon.
With the focus on length for the record and knowing they have a second lift hill run in mid-ride to double the ride length, this can free up the designers to bring some crazy ideas to life as the train attempts to follow Colossus’ old rough layout, but in a very different fashion from before, and what aerial tricks they perform during one round, can be changed up for a different concept in the second run. Or another idea, that I kind of like, in a nostalgia kind of way would be to I-Box one side of Colossus… AS IS… leaving the classic ride experience to enjoy during the first run, then follow it up with a very amp’d up next-gen crazy experience during the run on the second track. Maybe a slightly taller lift or LIM lift, near vertical drop, barrel-rolls, inversions and more. Really put you through the blender for the big finally.
Anyway… while this is mostly my own vision of what Iron Colossus COULD be like, the very idea of combining the two tracks into one giant double-length ride did come to me from a trusted source a long time ago. Could plans have changed? Sure… but I hope not because an Iron Colossus could be RMC’s most epic project of all time.

Certainly an interesting idea and I'd imagine having the world's longest coaster is something that would appeal to Six Flags. No doubt all will be revaled at the end of August when Six Flags do their annoucements for all parks day (Six Flags Day as I call it)! Although if they are gettign what would effectively be a new coaster next year Great Adventure had better get one also, MM only got Full Throttle last year.

 

[Craig]

Really didn't think all that much of Colossus when I did it to be honest, and the ride was clearly a shadow of its former self. Can't say it's unexpected after they announced it'd be running backwards for parts of the 2014 season last year either - something that they only normally do during Halloween.

That said, structurally it seems pretty decent and we know how much of a fan of records Six Flags is. It's a crazy idea, but seems plausible for the park to do something like this following the success of the other old ride transformations that RMC have been working on. Be interesting to see how it pans out over the next few months though. They'll have to get a move on to get it open by next year however!

 

[Rob]

Six Flags don't seem to open their new attractions until quite late in the year anyway, I'm not sure any of their new for 2014 attractions have opened yet. So time shouldn't be a big issue although no doubt it would be a substantial project. The park have said that they have plans that they think everyone will like though! Unless we get a leak beforehand we'll find out at the very end of August.