Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Kings Dominion's Grizzly Coaster Undergoing Major Refurb From The Gravity Group


© Kings Dominion
Kings Dominion is showing off their love for the park's Grizzly wooden roller coaster this off-season by making a large investment on a major refurbishment of the ride.  The work is being performed by The Gravity Group, and will feature retracking some significant portions of the ride but also making some interesting changes.  This project was first announced in November, and the park created great posts about the ride to get us up to speed (post 1 and post 2) but now is giving us even more great details.


The Grizzly opened in 1982 and was designed by Curtis Summers and built by Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters, and over the years has become fairly rough - typical for wooden coasters.  The Gravity Group's work is somewhat similar to what they did on The Beast last year at Kings Island, which also involved major sections of retracking and the use of pre-cut engineered track.


© Kings Dominion

Also similar to the Beast project is the major reprofiling of The Grizzly's first drop.  The Gravity Group is able to make the drop go closer to the ground since the original drop was quite shallow - this also allows the first drop to go from 45 degrees to 55 degrees.  This will also make a slight speed improvement as well.


There are a lot of other more subtle changes being made as well, and this video that the park put together with the ride's refubishment lead designer will spell them all out:




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