“It has a steep incline, suspends you over the edge which is 200 ft straight down, then drops you.” SheiKra snagged the 43rd slot in our rankings. Mark Rose, Vice President of Engineering at Busch Gardens Tampa, cites SheiKra as a great example of a coaster that might scare first-time riders, but ultimately attract them based on strategic design. “Busch Gardens’ SheiKra is my favorite,” said Michael Mejia, a 13-year-old coaster enthusiast from Michigan. Just missing our top 10 were favorites like The Beast (a classic wooden coaster in Kings Island with an astonishingly long track of 7,359 feet), Goliath (a smooth-as-silk “hypercoaster” in Six Flags Over Georgia), and even Lake Compounce’s Boulder Dash (an unforgettable journey through a forest of trees…you’ll forget that it never ascends above 50 feet). It’s as if the coaster were built backwards.”īoth coasters performed quite well in our rankings: X2 is #22, Thunderbolt is #36 (see the full coaster list here). He praises the seat-rotating X2 (Six Flags Magic Mountain) for “breaking the paradigm of how coasters should work,” and Thunderbolt (Kennywood) for its “one-of-a-kind” design, where the “fiercest drop is at the end. Ruben disagrees with a few of our picks his personal top 10 places a stronger emphasis on unique attractions that deviate from the predictable coaster blueprint. If you make the ride too tall, there is too much energy to dissipate (Kinetic Energy=Mass x Gravity x Height), resulting in a ride that is too long, has large vertical and horizontal curves, and G-forces that are too high.Īlas: our top 10 list was bound to stir up controversy. “Height and speed are easily achieved in a coaster, but there is a delicate balance to match. Larry Giles, Vice President of Design and Engineering at Busch Gardens and Water Country USA, weighs in on the careful balance required for great coaster design: Like us, he counts Bizarro (Six Flags New England) and Millennium Force (Cedar Point) among his personal top ten, praising the former for providing “so much air time that seats are superfluous” and the latter for “over-banked turns, tunnels,” and four “unforgettable…off-your-seat moments.” “The ride’s pacing should provide non-stop action from the moment you drop off the lift hill until you return to the relative serenity of the loading platform,” said Paul Ruben, a theme park diehard who has ridden exactly 830 different roller coasters over the course of his life. Still, that isn’t to say that longer is always better. Intimidator, Carowinds (Charlotte, North Carolina) MethodologyĪs always, here’s a breakdown of the methodology. New Texas Giant, Six Flags Over Texas (Arlington, Texas)ġ0. Apollo’s Chariot, Busch Gardens Williamsburg (Williamsburg, Virginia)ĩ. Intimidator 305, Kings Dominion (Doswell, Virginia)Ĩ. El Toro, Six Flags Great Adventure (Jackson, New Jersey)ħ. The Voyage, Holiday World (Santa Claus, Indiana)Ħ. Top Thrill Dragster, Cedar Point (Sandusky, Ohio)ĥ. Nitro, Six Flags Great Adventure (Jackson, New Jersey)Ĥ. Bizarro, Six Flags New England (Agawam, Massachusetts)ģ. Millennium Force, Cedar Point (Sandusky, Ohio)Ģ. Without further ado, we present the top 10 roller coasters in the nation.ġ. We even watched helplessly as our personal favorites barely missed out on a top 10 ranking (rest in peace, X2, Six Flags Magic Mountain). We talked to devoted fans and coaster designers. It’s time to set the record straight.Īt FindTheBest, we rated nearly 500 roller coasters in the United States, combining fan votes, awards, and technical specifications like max height, max speed, track length, G-forces, vertical angles, and inversions. You’ve seen dozens of cheap, page view-grabbing slideshows, read a series of misinformed opinion pieces, and glared at tweets proclaiming Space Mountain the “best ride ever!” You’re upset.
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