![]() Twisted Colossus, which opened in May, now is the longest hybrid roller coaster in the world. It’s nostalgia meets thrill-a perfect combination. Adrenaline junkies who grew up imagining the pinnacle of roller coaster excitement as a hulking lattice of lumber get to feel an attachment to their old ideal and experience a newer, wilder ride. But the hybrid makeover affects many riders on a deeper level, as well. So what makes these hybrid coasters so popular? A few factors are obvious: the smoothness of the track, the fluidity of the design, and the comfort of the ride. Where there were once no lines, park visitors now flock to these extreme makeover projects. ![]() While a few woodie purists miss the rumble and rattle of an authentic wooden track, crowds overwhelmingly love this new genre. Six Flags and Rocky Mountain have since built four more hybrid coasters, and so far, they’ve been batting a thousand. Upon riding, it was clear-the new version was spectacular. Roller coaster fans wondered just how good the transformation would be. To say the hybrid design was a runaway success is an understatement. The makeover saved the essence of the wooden ride while still allowing for newer and wilder maneuvers. But the footprint and general layout-including the positions of the drops and curves-remained the same. The new I-Box steel track transformed the New Texas Giant’s layout by adding dynamic aerobatics, like overbanked turns and dramatically steeper drops. The theme park chain worked with a coaster manufacturer called Rocky Mountain Construction to reinvigorate New Texas Giant, a record-breaking wooden coaster that had become an aggressively rough ride from years of excessive speeds and Texas heat. In 2011, Six Flags pioneered the concept of taking aging coasters and re-engineering them with modern metal tracks-a combination of wood and steel. Today, Colossus lives anew in a leaner, trimmer form known as Twisted Colossus, a “hybrid coaster.” But instead of putting the legend out to pasture, Six Flags implemented a new formula that’s beginning to save wooden coasters from what seemed like unavoidable extinction. Colossus, having lost much of its popularity, seemed like it was facing an uncertain future. Wooden roller coasters demand far more maintenance than their steel counterparts, which has led amusement parks around the country to knock down their once-beloved timber relics and replace them with newer rides. Visitors to Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, would still give the wooden giant a go, but its allure disappeared. Within a couple decades, taller, faster, and flashier coasters made of steel surpassed Colossus. ![]() It appeared in television shows and movies, including National Lampoon’s Vacation, and became an icon of amusement park thrills. Colossus once was the “King of Coasters.” Introduced at Six Flags Magic Mountain in 1978, the classic wooden behemoth-which reached reported speeds of 62 miles per hour and was the first roller coaster to feature more than one 100-foot drop-was the fastest and tallest on the planet. ![]()
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