New Wooden Roller Coaster Opening at Busch Gardens Williamsburg in 2017

At today's passholder preview presentation, Busch Gardens Williamsburg revealed that the park will be building a new family wooden roller coaster for their 2017 season.

Designed and built by Great Coasters International, the ride will be located in the Trapper's Village section of New France, near the park's Le Scoot log flume.  The ride will be themed to vikings which are invading the village, with the trappers working together to defend their turf.

Several statistics were revealed during the presentation, including a 74 foot first drop that uses the park's terrain to its advantage, a top speed of 48 miles per hour and 9 separate air-time hills.  Here is the preview clip that was released today:

Busch Gardens Williamsburg is calling this the "world's first crowdsourced ride" as they are looking to their fans to help "shape the ride experience" through polls and other means.  Right now fans have the opportunity to pick the name of the new ride, through April 1st.  The choices are Viking Raider, Invadr, and Battle Klash.  Everyone can vote once a day though the park's official website for the project.

Last week the park also uploaded another set of plans for the coaster, which show off the ride's layout more clearly.  The image above is from those plans, and I've added arrows to show the direction of travel.  The ride's 74 foot first drop looks to be right at the bottom of a low elevation area, making it much larger than the lift.  The rest of the ride crosses over the low elevation area twice and includes a tunnel and a helix finale.

The 2017 project will be the first wooden roller coaster in the history of Busch Gardens Williamsburg.  Stay tuned to the park's website for the new ride for more in the coming months!