Scary Facts Released regarding the "new fastest coaster on earth"

The Ring Racer roller coaster which is estimated to travel at speeds exceeding 134 miles per hour is having a ton of problems and there were some startling facts released recently regarding the problems. On september 3rd there was an explosion caused from the launch that actually broke part of the press box section of one of the racing stadiums and also injured 7 people (that was not reported in the original report which i find very scary) They cant get this ride to travel at its top speed and it is now known that it wont be able to open until late spring of 2010. Honestly is this ride going to be safe.... Im having a hard time believing that this ride is going to be rideable without getting hurt on it. Did Kingda Ka hit the fastest speed that a coaster can really go?

Sounds like Arrow wants to compete with Intamin! ;)

LOL, that's wrong on so many levels.

You mean I hit wrongness on more than one level? Score! lol

Maybe somebody from Six Flags sabotoged it so KK could keep it's record.

BTW Moosh, you're not only wrong on many levels, but just plain FUBAR as well.

Checking the internet, the only place I've seen this mentioned is on another message board in a section titled "Amusement Industry News and Rumors." If these are indeed "facts" that were "released" as stated in your thread title, can you point to a bona-fide source?

News item[url][url]

This is the translation of the article from a Bing site.:

Explosion at the ring racer-no injured
Slipstream destroyed window to the press room - breakdown series not tear off
By Marcel Wolber

Nürburgring. The breakdown series at the Nürburgring tear off. On Thursday a loud bang shook the racetrack on the Eifel - again and again was the new roller coaster ring racer of the polluter. According to the Nürburgring GmbH "was against 1 pm an incident during tests on the pneumatic".

Witnesses reported against the General indicators of an enormous pressure wave who zerbersten even the discs to the Press Centre situated on the other hand of the start and destination straight. Violated no one has been. After GA information, no vehicles on the racetrack on the road were at the incident. This changes from Friday when guest Superbike World Championship at the Nürburgring.

"There was danger for guests, visitors or technical personnel at any time." The unattended car of the roller coaster was disconnected from the motor during the test, all safety requirements imposed by the TÜV were respected, writes the Nürburgring GmbH in a press release.

The amount of damages and the scope of the repair measures will precisely analysed in the next few days. Still at the beginning of the week the Nürburgring GmbH on GA request had communicated that end opened the ring racer, the heart of new theme parks, September or early October. What is now from the main attraction of the ring work was clear on Thursday.

Mid-July a defect in the pneumatic launching device had closed down the roller coaster. Previously the ride that will accelerate in less than three seconds to 217 km per hour was gone, only for testing and advertising trips inter alia to the opening of the formula-1 weekend with former World Champion Michael Schumacher and at maximum speed.

Spare parts which were needed because of problems were been assembled according Nürburgring GmbH in the ring racer. Of software failures that have resulted Rheinland according to analysis of TÜV approximately six weeks ago the failure of ring racers, had been corrected in the meantime. On Tuesday, then started the test drives to reach the speed now ended in the debacle. The final acceptance of ring racers, performing TÜV Rheinland prior is for late September planned was

Jeffrey Seifert said:
Checking the internet, the only place I've seen this mentioned is on another message board in a section titled "Amusement Industry News and Rumors." If these are indeed "facts" that were "released" as stated in your thread title, can you point to a bona-fide source?

If you would have read the thread in question, you would have seen the pictures that were released showing some pretty nasty damage. So yes, it is very valid, and the accident in question did occur. It is the second such failure of the launch system.

The site that I looked at was nine pages of pretty useless information. So yes, I did read the thread. There were two jpeg links to the one post that mentioned an accident, but registration was required in order to view them, and there was really no indication that the two jpegs had anything to do with the post.

All I did was ask for a source (other than another message board) for these "released facts," there's no reason to get snotty about it.

Mamoosh said:
Violated no one has been.

I guess Tigger wasn't involved.

Jeffrey Seifert said:
All I did was ask for a source (other than another message board) for these "released facts," there's no reason to get snotty about it.

I agree. People question sources all the time around here and given the nature of the title, a link is generally customary and expected. And it's hard enough to move through some of our threads, I wouldn't want to sift through any other boards for info! :)

Tone is a very hard thing to judge on the internet, so I guess I should have clarified that I wasn't being smart about it. Regardless, some things don't always need to be linked, nor do links exist in certain circumstances. I didn't realize those images couldn't be viewed if you weren't registered though. I may see if I can fix that.

The damage in one of the pictures is very similar to what the picture of the frayed and bunched up cable on Xcelerator looks like, only its also underneath the train. The train appears to have been jolted from its normal position on the track as a result as well. Either that or the underbody and parts have been well misplaced by the malfunction. Windows around the facility were evidently blown out as well when this happened. It sounds more like the motor flat out "exploded" for lack of a better word.

Please do, I'm sure lots of people would appreciate seeing the pictures. It's especially timely since in one of the discussions about the Knott's incident it was mentioned that S&S, up until this point, never had a similar cable snap.

Was this thing a hydroalicly launched coaster like TTD and Xlerator?

No, S&S launched coasters are pneumatic (compressed air), but as I asked in the Knott's thread (but no one answered), I'm pretty sure the system is similar to their space shots, and use a cable.

From *something* I read, and I'm sorry I cannot attribute it at all, I managed to get a translation from German that SEEMED to indicate an explosion (presumably the compressor exploded given the fact that a shock-wave was supposedly sent some half-mile or further). Some number of people ("a few" indicates somewhere between 3-6 to me) suffered hearing loss - although immediately after the accident it was hard to determine whether those injuries would be temporary or permanent.

There was a bunch more German gibberish, but the translator program I was using left too much of it in German (i.e., most likely jargon and/or colloquial speech).

Jeffrey, you are correct, this coaster does use a cable for its launch. You can see pictures of it (post-explosion) on a page that was linked to earlier in this thread.

Jeff, the photos you couldn't see on RCPro are the same ones that are in the article Moosh linked to.

Didn't this coaster just appear on one of the travel channel specials briefly which seemed to give the impression it was running? Even prior to this event I thought there was another pretty significant problem.

Yes, it was on Extreme Terror Rides: Speed. The segment featuring Ring Racer was very short, but it was operating when they filmed it.