Consider it the summer of the coaster. Theme parks from east to west are unveiling new roller coasters made of wood, steel and a combination thereof that soar through the air, plunge through water and perform gravity-defying stunts.
A look at some a few of the new ones.
Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio adds to its fat portfolio (16!) of coasters with GateKeeper, which makes its debut Saturday. The steel, wing roller coaster will suspend riders 170 feet above the Cedar Point Beach then send them hurtling through six inversions and stomach-dropping falls at close to 70 mph.
Also opening Saturday is Dollywood's RiverRush, a water coaster in the Pigeon Forge, Tenn.'s Splash Country water park. Four-person boats cruise through an acre of hills, twists and tunnels at heights of up to 237 feet.
On the West Coast, California's Great America in Santa Clara is introducingGoldstriker in May (no specific date yet) that lasts more then two minutes, hits speeds of 54 mph and has the longest initial descent tunnel (174 feet) of any wooden coaster. Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park unveils Coast Rider on May 25. It's a 1,339-foot-long, 52-foot-tall ride and is meant to evoke the twists and turns of the state's winding coastline. On the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, a steel coaster dubbed Undertow opens this summer. The spinning coaster sports individual four-seat cars in which passengers' weight distribution determines the vehicle's rotation. And at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, Full Throttle features a triple launch — two forward and one backward — and hits speeds of more than 70 mph. It's opening this summer, but the exact date hasn't been determined.
In Orlando, Fun Spot America (formerly Fun Spot Action Park) introduces its 2,000-foot-long White Lightning coaster as part of a $40 million expansion.
Opening this summer at Six Flags White Water in Marietta, Ga., is Typhoon Twister,which drops riders five stories into a wide bowl and then spits them into a corkscrew chute.
A new twist on Batman: The Ride at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Ill.: The ride now goes backward at top speeds of 50 mph and over 2,700 feet of track.
Silver Dollar City in Branson, Mo., rolled out Outlaw Run earlier this spring. The hybrid wooden coaster hits speeds of 68 mph and has three inversions.
Another hybrid coaster, Iron Rattler, premieres this summer at Six Flags FiestaTexasin San Antonio. It sports a 171-foot-drop and hits speeds of 70 mph.
Six Flags St. Louis unveils Boomerang, a 125-foot-tall coaster that tops out at 50 mph as it hurtles over 1,650 feet of track.
And in the Wisconsin Dells, Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park has spiced up its traditional wooden coaster. Re-dubbed Hades 360, it features an upside-down roll.
New $10M ride at Branson's Silver Dollar City has the world's steepest drop for a wooden roller coaster and is the only one to do a 720-degree barrel roll.