You’ll have to find your thrills on other rides in Cedar Point this year.
Sandusky amusement park announced late Friday afternoon that its highly anticipated roller coaster Top Thrill 2 will not reopen this year.
The roller coaster, which was a reinterpretation of the old roller coaster “Top Thrill Dragster”, opened with much fanfare at the beginning of the season, but was closed again just eight days later due to problems.
Crews from ride manufacturer Zamperela spent the next few weeks dismantling the roller coaster trains and examining the tracks, occasionally conducting test runs with empty roller coaster trains late at night and early in the morning when the park was closed to visitors.
Cedar Point had previously stated that it did not expect the attraction to close for the entire season, but has not publicly commented on the problems with the attraction.
But in the end, the obviously necessary changes could not be made in time to save the season.
“We are extremely disappointed that we will not be able to open the attraction this season, but remain committed to our goal of providing our guests with a reliable, consistent and unparalleled roller coaster experience in 2025,” the park said in a statement.
Top Thrill has an eventful past
Top Thrill 2 evolved from the original Top Thrill roller coaster, which closed in August 2021 after a rider was seriously injured in an accident.
The original design has been problematic for the park since its opening in 2003.
The attraction suffered frequent malfunctions because its unique launch system hurled riders over a 420-foot-tall tower.
The redesigned coaster used the original tower and added a second tower so that all riders could experience the rollback that sometimes happened on the original Top Thrill Dragster when something went wrong with the launch system.
The park spent several months last year remodeling and testing the new Top Thrill 2 roller coaster. It uses the layout of the old coaster in many ways, but has a few new features, including a new launch system, sleek coaster cars, and a second tower that also reaches into the clouds.
Top Thrill 2 in numbers
The Top Thrill 2 is the fastest triple-launch strata coaster in the world.
It consists of two 420-foot-tall towers and launches riders into the air three times at 74 miles per hour, 101 miles per hour, and finally 120 miles per hour.
The total length of the track is 3,422 feet and the ride takes about two minutes from start to finish.
Passengers board the coaster cars on the platform and after they are secured, the loading track slides onto the main track for the three launches.
There are three racing-themed roller coaster trains in metallic blue, metallic silver and metallic black.
