小兔のarcana

Though my English composition is not so impressive, for the sake of being in memory of riding this thrilling coaster with Japanese friends and for their convenience in reading the content, this article needs to be written in English. ^_^

Last summer, Japanese friends and I visited Cedar Point amusement park which is famous for its exciting and thrilling coasters. Are we coaster mania? Absolutely not! Actually it was an extracurricular activity arranged by our summer program of University of Michigan. Most of the classmates don’t like coasters at all. After arriving Cedar Point, we split into two teams, one is the brave team of which members were eager to try every exciting coasters, while the other is the mild team that dared to ride the violent and extreme exciting coasters immediately. Guess which team I was in? The mild team! Members of mild team included Japanese lawyers, in house counsel, judge, government officer and the only non-Japanese- me! We decided to start from the super mild coaster, after the first ride, we all felt it was not so frightening as we expected, so we headed for another more exciting one. However, when we saw the tallest coaster in the park and heard the screaming, we still hesitated to jump on that coaster.

How thrilling is that coaster? Well, here comes some statistics. It is 420 feet tall and topping out at an unheard of speed of 120 mph. No wonder its name is Thrilling Dragster! There is some depiction cited from the website of Cedar Point (http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/inside_park/rides/thrill/ttd/specs/index.cfm)

Riders begin their epic journey aboard this whopping 42-story screamer by securing themselves into ultra-cool trains that resemble top fuel dragsters. The train then moves into a "starting line" position, where it launches forward, reaching speeds of 120 mph in approximately four seconds.
But hold on … this isn't your father's roller coaster. The train then zooms straight up the 420-foot-tall hill on track that rotates 90 degrees, crests the coaster's apex and then free-falls back to Earth, reaching a speed of 120 mph for the second time. As the train races more than 400 feet to the ground, the track twists an unbelievable 270 degrees - what a rush! Riders then return to the station to begin regaling their friends with stories of the greatest ride of their lives.

Sounds crazy, right? But….two brave Japanese lawyers and I made up our minds to give a shot (maybe we lost our minds then!) We waited in the lines to ride the thrilling coaster, while we were waiting, we saw the coaster launch again and again, heard the screaming again and again and the pale faces of the riders, it was sort of pre-test. Furthermore, we saw one ride that launched to the top of the trail and slipped back to the initial launch point (start point) and launched again and finished the complete ride, if I had been in that ride, I would have vomited. By contrast, at that moment, I heard the crowd shouted “ How lucky (the riders are)!” Crazy Americans! Anyway, waiting in the line was another interesting experience. You can see exciting riders who love to share their previous riding experience. So it is indeed a kind of pre-test. Because there was a girl already got in the train and fasten seat belt, but at very last minute, she raised her hand and asked for quit. And it was just the preceding ride before my turn! Well, I did ride the thrilling coaster at the end, though very frightening, it took less than 10 seconds, launching, screaming in the sky, and you landed! Our conclusion is “the faster, the less frightening!” After riding this, somehow fulfillment was achieved by us…Huh…we thought…from now on, no coasters can beat us!


P.S. Cedar Point is an interesting amusement park. It is located in Ohio. See www.cedarpoint.com