Sonic Spinball

Sonic Spinball is a spinning roller coaster at Alton Towers, built by Mourn A Sön.

History

Opened in 2004 as Spinball Whizzer, The ride caused much excitement amongst enthusiasts, who were keen to see a spinning coaster that was not based on a wild mouse. Unfortunately, what they got was a wild mouse with banked bits. Granted, the layout was more random than a traditional mouse, but it's twisting, layered track layout gives the game away. This is especially obvious when comparing it to it's step-sister, Dragon's Fury, at Chessington World of Adventures. An infinitely better ride, with a long, winding, out-and-back layout. To add insult to injury, it opened the same year. As if that wasn't enough, Camelot's Whirlwind was a standard travelling mouse-type layout, and was arguably the better of the UK's three Maurer spinners.

The ride was originally 'themed' - and that word is used loosely - as a pinball... ball? Machine? ...Something to do with pinball, anyway. It was never really made clear. It was also notable for having the most irritating on-ride announcement in roller coaster history. Namely,

"Woo-hoo! What a ride!"

It was not unknown for people queuing to be driven to murder/suicide by the repeated playing of this sound effect. This is thought to be one of the main causes of the re-theme.

Colour scheme

The ride has been often criticised for it's vile colours, both before and after the retheme (hence why this is between the two!)....and too damn right, its the first thing your eye is drawn to as you get to the bottom of Towers Street, and it makes you want to go the other way or buy terribly expensive sunglasses at Towers Trading to avoid walking past its overly-bright frontage!

Re-theme

In 2009, some rather unexpected rumours began to appear on t'interweb about a re-theme of Spinball Whizzer. Given that Alton were building Th13teen at the time, many found this hard to believe. They were rightly concerned that this project would draw funds away from the next coaster. It wasn't until pictures of the ride being repainted surfaced, that these fears were confirmed. The worst attempt at theming since Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was about to get worse.

Possible extract from the minutes of a meeting in the Alton planning office: (note, This may or may not have happened)

"Let's see. We have this big ugly ride ruining the view of the towers, how can we make it better?"

"Weeellll.... What if we paint it more vivid colours? Research has shown babies like bright things, maybe teenagers do as well?"

"Yes! Blue sky thinking, I like it!"

"No, if we paint it sky blue, it might blend in with the sky."

"No no no, I'm giving you the green light..."

"Green? Too natural. Besides, aren't they using green on Thirteen?"

"No you imbecile, Go for it! Paint the town red!"

"You want red now? With green? Are you for real?"

"LOOK! just paint the bloody thing in whatever leftover Humbrol you have kicking around your garage for all I care! Just do it, quickly and cheaply! Now get out of my office before I feed you into the rapids' water pump, just to see how many bits of you come out the other end! CLEAR???"

Eventually, some fool decided on red and blue. Not a million miles off the original red and cyan. One of the staff was a computer game geek, and noticed that the colours reminded him of Sonic the hedgehog. He mentioned this to his supervisor, who leapt on the chance to grab a sponsorship deal with Sega. A few phone calls later, Sega agreed to pay for the paintbrushes used, if Alton agreed to pay several million pounds for the rights to use the Sonic brand.

Both parties walked away from the negotiations happy. The Sega spokesman returned to his mansion in his limo, and spent the evening in a gold lined hot tub with no less than three super models.

The Alton delegate disappeared shortly after returning to Merlin HQ. He has not been seen since. If you know anything, please call Crime Stoppers, anonymously. The number is at the bottom of your screen now.

Ride Experience

The ride uses the classic Maurer spinning cars, consisting of two pairs of seats, back-to-back. As no effort was made to theme them as pinballs for Spinball Whizzer, no effort was needed to re-theme them! A wonderful stroke of genius that saved the project manager at least £25.

The restraints are again, typical of this type of ride. In that they are designed for children and people with eating disorders under 5 foot tall. Any normal sized adult will have real difficulty in getting the lap bar past their knees, never mind closing it with "two clicks". It is not unknown to see perfectly reasonably proportioned people have to take "the walk of shame", just because the ride's designers never thought to allow for those who may enjoy the odd pie with their ale.

Once seated, your only hope of getting the bar closed is to perform the kind of contortion usually seen only in Circ De Soleil. Unless you have Russian blood, this can be tricky. You usually end up with your legs crossed in a very un-natural way.

To add to the awkwardness of the situation, the cars do not stop to let passengers on or off. Like a Routemaster bus, you are expected to leap on as it trundles past you. Just like a shark, if the cars ever stop moving, they will die. For this reason, it is imperative that you board quickly and get your lap bar locked before reaching the end of the station. Make no mistake, the car will start the ride whether you are secured or not! The staff do their best to prevent you being flung out of the car by placing their hands very close to your crotch as you move past them. If they find an un-secured restraint, they will grab you by the goolies and pull you out before the car leaves the station. This may sound painful, but it could save your life.

If you pass this safety test, the ride itself can begin. As soon as the cars reach the end of the platform, they dive into a sharp right hand turn. From this point on, the cars are free to spin on a central axis, and the reason for the restraint check becomes apparent. Centripetal force will put your whole body weight on the feeble little black rubber thing in front of you. Just as you come to terms with this, the car engages the lift hill, and proceeds skyward at an alarming pace.

The lift hill is the ride's stand-out feature, and really is a world class piece of coaster innovation. Like other Maurer spinners, Sonic Spinball uses "trick track" to scare its riders. Years ago, The Alton Mouse featured a tilted lift hill, originally used with a rotating tunnel to give the illusion of movement. Twenty-first century coaster designers have gone one better by mounting the lift hill on supports made not of steel, but of a complicated glass fibre composite, similar to that used in fishing rods. This allows the mass of a car climbing the lift to start oscillating the whole ride structure. By the time the car reaches the top, the track can be swaying up to six feet from one side to the other.

Thankfully, the rest of the structure is more solid, and moves little more than any other coaster.

The remainder of the track is mostly uneventful. The trademark horseshoe element found on all Maurer spinners provides more entertainment for people off the ride than those on it. It can be summed up as a series of block-brakes with track in between.

The ride ends on a straight break run, where an ultra high tech mechanism returns the car to the correct orientation so smoothly, that most riders hardly notice. Once back in the station, the lap bar will ‘click’ and, if you are a child, it will release. Most adults will have to prise it out of their gut with a crowbar. The staff keep one in the booth for these occasions, and are always ready to help. Once released, you generally fall face first into the exit platform, after being pushed out of the car by the next eager rider.

Controversy

In spring 2010, new evidence came to light, suggesting the true reason for the re-theme was to Bait squirrels in to the area, so the park management could grab the air rifles from the shooting gallery and go hunting. These reports were quickly denied after a newspaper ran a harsh expose. No firm evidence can be found to support either side of this story.