California's Great America is Planning a New Coaster for 2018

© California's Great America

There have been rumors that California's Great America is planning a new roller coaster for 2018 for some time now, and recently some construction markings even appeared at the park.

Now, we can say with a great deal of certainty that the park is indeed planning one, at least according to this case with the City of Santa Clara for an architectural review of... drum roll... a new 100' tall roller coaster.

© Google Maps

Going off of where the construction markings have been seen, it looks like the ride will take up the space once occupied by Invertigo, which has long since been an open garden area.  You can see that in the map above toward the upper right.  I'm not totally familiar with the park so I had to make a few judgment calls, but I outlined the area that could feasibly be consumed by a new coaster, at least in part, in red.

Obviously there's plenty of room in that area of the park that extends beyond Invertigo's former home... but how much space will be needed for 100 foot tall coaster?  In today's world of biggest and fastest, 100 feet doesn't seem like much, but there's always more to the story.

For instance, Intamin's Mega-Lite coasters are known as some of the best out there, and they only stand 102 feet tall.  Their compact layout would also fit easily in this space, I'd wager.  Similarly, Kentucky Kingdom's Lightning Run, a Chance Rides Hyper GT-X, is also 100 feet tall and known for packing quite a punch.

Then again, the park was also rumored to receive an Intamin Impulse coaster, but that's well over 100 feet, and also a clone of X-Flight at Six Flags Great America... but that's 120 feet.  So those don't seem to fit here.

It's always fun to speculate, but the bottom line is that it's looking like coaster fans will have something exciting coming to the park in 2018!