A Blast From The Past - Class of '01

Since Mid-February the Blast has been taking a look at the coasters of 2001. With the 2011 season soon to be in full swing, we thought we would wrap up this series. This week we bring you brief snippets of six of the last seven 2001 coasters.




Originally located at Pontchatrain Beach, Gaxlaxi is a standard SDC, it was moved to Fun Fair Park in 1978 & opened on July 11, 2001 at Dixie Landin' where it still operates today.




Looping Star at Beech Bend was on the Carnival circuit until the park purchased it in 2000, it operated at Beech Bend until September of 2009. At the end of the season it was sold to Sauble Beach in Ontario Canada and is currently being constructed there.




Six Flags Great Adventure's Nitro was the other 2001 B&M, opening on April 7th of that year. The L shaped out and back was billed as the most explosive coaster on the planet! Nitro was the parks 12th scream machine and Six Flags Great Adventure declared themselves "The Mother of All Coaster Parks."




At Lake Winnepesaukah in Rossville Georgia the new addition for 2001 was Wild Thing. The L&T Systems Wild Mouse was renamed White Lightnin' after the end of the 2001 season.

There were two Vertical Velocity (V2) coasters that opened in 2001. Six Flags Great America's V2 opened on May 18th and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom's V2 opened June 22nd.

The Intamin LIM Shuttles were orginally identical in their innagrual year, but Discovery Kingdom's coaster was modified with the rides front spikes angle being changed from a 90 degree angle to a 45 degree angle in order to met Vallejo's height restrictions. The rear tower, while still at a 90 degree angle, was shorten 36 feet.

Well.. there's just one 2001 coaster left and it's very special to us, so it's the perfect story to end this series. Venture a guess, or look througn all the Blast posts of the three and a half months or just wait until next week to find out how the series ends.