Posted Thursday, May 24, 2007 4:08 PM | Contributed by Jeff
[Ed. note: The following is an unedited press release. -J]
Round up your friends and get ready for one wild ride this summer! Cedar Point amusement park/resort has announced that Maverick, the park’s newest roller coaster, will make its much-anticipated debut on Saturday, May 26.
To help commemorate its grand opening, Cedar Point will distribute free Maverick T-shirts to the first 3,000 riders on the coaster on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, May 26-28.
“We are thrilled that Maverick will be up and running for the holiday weekend,” said John Hildebrandt, vice president and general manager of Cedar Point. “Our guests have been very understanding and patient with us as we made these changes and now the reward is theirs – a ride on Maverick!”
The coaster’s debut was delayed so that four sections of its steel track could be reconfigured and fabricated. The new sections of track were installed earlier this week.
Prior to the ride’s opening, the park will host a ceremony to recognize the winners of the Firelands Chapter of the American Red Cross First Ride Auction. Participants placed bids to be one of the first riders on the $21 million roller coaster.
With its multiple elements and terrain-hugging layout, Maverick is a coaster like no other at Cedar Point. Maverick will treat its riders to a thrilling journey over more than 4,400 feet of steel track that will twist its way through rocky canyons, over “airtime-filled” hills and around quick but smooth changes in direction. A 105-foot-tall first hill followed by a drop of 100 feet at an incredible 95 degrees, a twisted horseshoe roll which features back-to-back inversions and a second launch through a completely dark tunnel where guests reach speeds of up to 70 mph are sure to thrill.
Recently, IntaRide, the ride’s manufacturer, revised the rider height requirement. During pre-opening testing, IntaRide determined that riders must be at least 52 inches tall to ride.
The water bombs are going to be sweet. They were tweaking them Thursday afternoon. I'm bummed it's opening 2 days after I was there. Oh well...gives me another reason to drive down to CP.
Well, considering all the track is installed on The Chiller and half the ride is running, I'd say The Chiller is more or less 3/4 done (at least well OVER half way), but I get what your point nonetheless... that was one heck of a quick turnaround from announcing they'd need to replace the track to opening the ride... happened VERY quickly!
Come on! They knew they were replacing those sections of track before they ever announced it. I bet when they announced it the pieces of track were already in containers being shipped to CP. That is just too quick of a turnaround on the track for it to not have been preplanned.
Opening on Memorial Day weekend no less when crowds are traditionally lighter due to the holiday. Smart Marketing ploy on their part. ;) It worked on me! I was just there last week, and am going back Wednesday to give it a spin.
Excellent ! No one does it better than Cedar Point ! Yes what a quick turnaround to get the track replaced. .They must of been working 24/7. I do hope that its a smooth ride and the trains can manover in and out of the elements. Maverick looks like a great ride . And to add some water jets? How cool is that? It s really nice to see a ride that is so close to the ground and has a lot of really tight banked elements,and tunnels. How sweet it is!!!
