Dollywood previews Lightning Rod roller coaster

And a quadruple down!

Very much looking forward to Lightning Rod.

continuously welded tubular steel track

Huh? Anyway, who here doesn't love a solid terrain coaster? And yes, quadruple down baby!

I can't wait till opening weekend. I still need to ride Firechaser. This is one of my favorite parks and I'm so happy to have an RMC within a day's drive. Can. Not. Wait.

^Firechaser was everything I'd hoped for in the Italian Job rides....not "thrilling" per se, but ridiculously fun and entertaining.

And a quadruple down!

I think that especially tickles my coaster geek brain as the first time I rode Kennywood's Jack Rabbit, I'd never ridden a coaster with a double down. Thought I was about to die. So a quadruple down, yes please.

Dollywood is making a lot of smart choices as they develop the resort, from these last two coasters to DreamMore and so on.

At NoCoaster, Pete Owens told us Dippin' Dots has turned a classic Airstream camper into a DD stand, which will be "hitched" to one of the cars in Juke Box Junction, making it the only Dippin' Dots stand in the world I want to have my picture take with. (Tried Dippin' Dots once, back when it was still "the ice cream of the future"; decided the future was overpriced and tasted bad.)

Was going to +1 you, slithernoggin, until you said Dippin Dots tasted bad. I can't get on board with that. ;)

Thought that was pretty cool about the Airstream as well. I've never been to Dollywood, but this looks like the year it might actually happen, and I get a little fluttery just thinking about it. I haven't been so excited about a new ride in ages!!!

Sadface :-(

Yeah, tried them, just didn't like them much.

Dippin' Dots - the only ice cream I've ever thrown away....

Haters. I love Dippin' Dots. Admittedly, I never pay for them though, only get them at IAAPA.

I'm going to the Thrills in the Hills event. I haven't been to the park since Mystery Mine was new, so I have quite a bit of catching up to do.

~Rob

I can't wait. It's just around the corner.
I'm hoping to find a nice slow day (or two) early in the season and ride the hell out of this ride. I also haven't tried Firechaser and I'm really looking forward to that. And fried chicken.

Submitted this as a new news story but I just received a season pass email stating Lightning Rod will not be open this weekend as planned. Hope it's up and running in two weeks when I head down for the Festival of Nations

Not really news, but thanks for letting us know.

Coaster Crew was stupid for scheduling an event for this weekend. You should always wait a few weeks for any kinks to get worked out.

I believe this is the appropriate time for someone to decide to add some levity to the situation and claim that they had already booked their flight.

I had planned to go this weekend but I'm only 4 hours away so I decided to wait. So no flights booked. And thankfully I always do Last minute Hotwire deals for hotels so I hadn't booked yet.

Vater said:

I believe this is the appropriate time for someone to decide to add some levity to the situation and claim that they had already booked their flight.

Nah, SWA lets me re-book without fees. Kidding...this time.

Besides, like Knott's, there's plenty of other fun stuff at Dollywood to do, even if Xcelerrrr....Lightning Rod...isn't running.

The phrase goes: Fool me once....at least I learned from my once.

Now, about all those "wasted" trips to Knoebels when Turns didn't open.... 8-)

edit: Tek was too quick with the "send" button....

You beat me to it, Mr. Vater.
I had planned to go this weekend as well, but only have a 5 hr or so drive. And I thought I'd snag a place to stay once I got there. So it's all good. (Actually, I'd like to try DreamMore someday.)
Anyway, I was grateful for the email and I guess I'll have to wait to lay eyes on Dolly.
I had a feeling there was no way in hell the ride would be ready on time.

janfrederick said:

continuously welded tubular steel track

Huh? Anyway, who here doesn't love a solid terrain coaster? And yes, quadruple down baby!

In metal working terms, tubular steel means that it is hollow (as opposed to flat steel or solid bar steel). It doesn't matter what shape it is. You can have square tubular or round tubular. In this case they are probably using square tubular (more of a rectangle shape in reality) bolted to the top of the layered wooden track - similar to Outlaw Run.