A Sneak Peek At Invadr, Busch Gardens Williamsburg's 1st Wooden Roller Coaster

What a wonderful way to start out the first visit of the year to Busch Gardens Williamsburg. This park is known to be one of the most beautiful parks in the world and this entry billboard only adds to the eye candy!

Busch Gardens Williamsburg allowed fans of the park to choose such things as the name, the logo and the train design. Here's a couple of banners that show off the very cool looking lead cars that were revealed at IAAP last fall.

This concept drawing gives a lot of information as well a the layout of this GCI family coaster. It also shows how the new attraction interacts with both the log flume and the train.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg put a lot of effort into a back story for this ride. A great battle will ensue in the loggers' village of New France. Vikings will invade, forcing the loggers to defend their village and Magnus was trying to recruit Scott to support the Viking invasion.

While this ride entrance side is cool, it is extremely understated...

When compared to the eye candy that you walk under when entering the queue. The "War Wagon" was provided by Weber Group, Inc. This link takes you to their park portfolio which is a great walk down memory lane for park enthusiasts.

A special treat was in store for season pass holders on preview day, here is the video.

Here is a look at part of the queue, and you can see the auxiliary generator that will be used if the electrical grid goes dark.  Griffon is in the background, celebrating its 10th birthday this May.

And, a station view showing where the adventurous battle begins. That is the flume above the station.

Suzy, Director of Development and Engineering, fills us in on some of the details about Invadr. The park is thrilled to be sharing a wonderful new coaster with their guest this spring. That's right, spring, not sometime in the summer.

                            

This view of Invadr was taken on the bridge between New France and Germany. Behind the log flume, you can see the sinuous curves of Invadr and a view of the covered first drop from the other side.

This tunnel goes below ground level and soon this entire area will be landscaped to Busch Gardens Williamsburg's exacting standards.

One of the nine airtime hills throughout the ride, with a little bit of train steam floating above and Griffon on the left with Alpengeist on the right. Kinda like heaven, with two Bolliger & Mabillard coasters next to a brand spanking new woodie. April 7, 2017 can't get here soon enough.

Rather than their traditional all wood structure, Great Coasters International used a galvanized steel support structure for Bush Gardens Williamsburg's newest attraction, a break from their normal practice. But you can see, they kept the fun from their past with turns like this.

You can see the beginning of the above ground tunnel for the first drop from the other side, and the train track run right through the coaster layout. You can also see the extensive steel structure. Our thanks to Ron and Suzy for their help on Season Passholder Preview Day.