Knoebels Announces New Tornado Flat Ride for Park's 2020 Season

© Knoebels

Knoebels Amusement Resort, located in Elysburg, Pennsylvania, has announced the addition of a spinning new flat ride named Tornado for the park's 2020 season.  Created by Wisdom Rides of America, the ride will be one of the company's Tornado rides, already quite popular at parks and fairs across the globe.

From the park's press release on the addition, the Tornado with feature eight cars that hold four passengers each in individual seats facing the inside of the car.  The ride will move in a circle then tilt upward at 20 degrees, lifting the cars up to 15 feet above ground level as they swing in a giant circle.

Tornado also has an interactive feature as riders can spin the cars themselves.  "Controlling part of a ride provides a really unique and exciting experience,” said Richard Knoebel, Knoebels park president.

Riders will need to be 38 inches tall to ride Tornado with an adult, and 48 inches to ride alone.  The new ride will be set up near the StratosFEAR drop tower and the Kreeper’s Pumpkin Patch game.

Knoebels has also announced that their magic carpet flat ride, 1001 Nacht, will be removed from the park.  The ride has been at Knoebels for two decades but its age and declining popularity has led the park to decide to retire it.

Hersheypark Shares Snowy Update of Chocolatetown + Candymonium Aerials

© Hersheypark

Hersheypark's mega-2020 expansion, named Chocolatetown, recently was blanketed in a pretty layer of snow, fitting for January in Pennsylvania.  The park took advantage of the beautiful construction site and took to the skies to film some awesome drone footage, and promptly shared it with us all.

Not only are we able to see how far along all of Chocolatetown is, but we also get a nice status update of the park's new signature roller coaster, the B&M hyper named Candymonium.

© Hersheypark

The park had topped off the ride a while back, so we already knew the coaster had made a lot of progress.  These shots let us see that track and supports have extended all the way out to the ride's turnaround, which can be seen being constructed in the above shot.  The coaster will have a traditional high turn around element that jogs slightly to the right of the main layout.  The track then points the trains back toward the main park - it's neat to see how many times the ride crosses over the stream that runs under it!

© Hersheypark

Chocolatetown is looking very nice as well, with the major new buildings all up and enclosed.  You can make out many highlights of the area, Candymonium's station is at the bottom, you can also see the new fountain that overlooks the stream and the Carousel building as well.

The $150 million expansion is going to completely transform the entrance area for Hersheypark in 2020, allowing for faster entry and much more breathing room.  It also will feature a host of new dining and retail locations, all of which will offer mouth watering Hershey treats.

Keep up with the progress on Chocolatetown via the park's website, and check out the whole aerial video here.

West Coast Racers Now Open at Six Flags Magic Mountain

© Six Flags Magic Mountain

Proving that good things come to those who wait, Six Flags Magic Mountain has debuted their brand new "world’s first single track quadruple racing coaster," West Coast Racers.  The unique racing roller coaster was provided to the park by Premier Rides, and features trains that race each other around the course, which is actually made up of one singular track.

© Six Flags Magic Mountain

Each of the coaster's trains head through both sides of the track, one yellow and one white, and they are powered by four separate LSM launch areas.  West Coast Racers features a top speed of 55 miles per hour and each train navigates four inversions - three zero g rolls and one zero g stall - during the experience.  The ride's track extends around 4,000 feet in length.  The twisted layout includes 14 track crossovers and a "high five" element where the trains bank toward each other almost allowing riders to high five those on the train they are racing.

© Six Flags Magic Mountain

Six Flags Magic Mountain has partnered with the Burbank based West Coast Customs on the theming of the new ride.  The shop is known around the world for their car customizations, and they worked with the theme park on designing the ride vehicles for West Coast Racers.  The company also created the narration for the "pit stop" section of the ride, where vehicles wait for their second blast around the track.  The pit stop area provides riders with an "inside look into the West Coast Customs shop."

© Six Flags Magic Mountain

“We are thrilled to add yet another unique, record-breaking coaster to our second-to-none collection of world-class attractions. West Coast Racers absolutely delivers, living up to Six Flags Magic Mountain’s unprecedented thrill DNA,” said Park President, Neal Thurman. “With a broad appeal, this coaster is the centerpiece of the newly themed area, The Underground, featuring new dining and retail opportunities.”

© Six Flags Magic Mountain

The new roller coaster is the central piece of a newly themed area at Six Flags Magic Mountain, known as The Underground.  The "LA centric urban-themed area" gives visitors a "high-energy street vibe" that includes new retail and food and beverage locations.  These include Twin Charged Tacos, Chicken Coupe, Snack Trax, Speed Shop and Six Gear.  The Underground is also home to the park's wooden roller coaster, Apocalypse, along with the soon to be reopened go karts, Pacific Speedway.

A Final Update in the Story of Bowcraft Amusement Park

© Patch.com

While this comes as no surprise, it looks as though the final remnants of New Jersey's former Bowcraft Amusement Park were recently demolished, adding the final chapter in the story of the park.  While not a large amusement park or one with a hundred years worth of history, it's always sad to see a park go.  The local Patch news site featured video recently of the structures still standing on the site being razed, though all the rides were removed previously.  The park's site will become apartments.

Back in late 2018 the park's inventory of rides and attractions were put up for sale, with the park having operated for the last time that same year.  There was a nice selection of rides available, and hopefully they all found a good home.  I believe the Pirate Ship went to Alabama Adventure as a new for 2019 ride.

© Bing Maps

Bing has an aerial of the park with the rides removed, but the property not yet fully demolished.  You can see just a couple rides still in place, and the outline of where many of them once sat.

© Google Maps

That view can be compared to this one from Google, showing the park before anything was removed.

The fate of Crossbow, the park's family sized Zierer roller coaster, which was a tad bigger then you'd have expected to find at a park of this size, remains unclear.  The ride was listed for sale for $500k when the ride liquidation occurred, but I'm unaware of who picked it up - if anyone.  You can see some on and off ride footage of Crossbow at this link.  Also, if you feel like a trip down memory lane the park's website is oddly still functional, have a click around.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Pantheon Coaster Looking Mighty Fine in New Photos

© Busch Gardens Williamsburg

The layout of Busch Gardens Williamsburg's new multi-launch roller coaster, Pantheon, is getting close to the final stages of construction.  The park has steadily worked through the month of December, adding both track and supports for visitors to gawk at during the park's holiday celebration.

The photo up top is one of the park's official ones, showing off the ride's top hat element, which is followed by a very steep dive down toward the river below - also the ride's longest drop at around 180 feet.

CHECK OUT THE BANKING ON THIS ELEMENT! It's absolutely insane looking! There are a lot of reasons to look forward to #BGWPantheon, but we expect this hill to become a thing of legend. pic.twitter.com/DtJKcxTt7O

— BGWFans.com (@BGWFans) January 3, 2020

Thanks (as always) to BGWFans for their excellent coverage of Pantheon construction we have a bunch of new photos of the coaster's rather extreme looking outwardly banked turn.  While we've seen outwardly banked turns on many rides in recent years, especially those on RMC rides, other manufacturers have been slower to hit quite such extreme angles as we see here.  This giant turn is located just after the ride's drop (seen in the photo up top) and the trains should be moving at a nice clip through here.  I can only imagine the forces riders will experience as they soar over this peak!

BGWFans has plenty of additional photos of Pantheon work, including the supports that are now up for the ride's final two elements, both looks rather twisty in their own right.  Check it out here!

Nashville Shores Waterpark Building Mega Mayhem Slide for 2020

© Nashville Shores

Located just outside downtown Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville Shores Waterpark is building a massive new water slide for 2020 named Mega Mayhem.  The slide is a combination of two popular water slide features, mixed together into one thrilling attraction.

Mega Mayhem will be the largest water slide in the park's history, designed with rafts that are capable of holding the whole family.

“Mega Mayhem is a family-thrill waterslide that we are excited to bring to Middle Tennessee in 2020,” said Larry Edgmon, general manager of Nashville Shores. “This unique, thrilling ride is actually like two waterslides in one.  It is a hybrid slide featuring two distinct elements with a tornado funnel and a giant four-story wall that will provide a memorable group experience for families and friends.”

© Nashville Shores

Riders who choose to take a spin on Mega Mayhem will start atop a six story platform.  The diagram above shows the layout of the slide, and as you can see it will be brightly colored to attract even more attention.  After moving through a dark serpentine tunnel, riders drop into the tornado funnel which gives them brief moments of zero-gravity.

Moving through the center of the tornado funnel, rafts slide down more enclosed path and suddenly plunge down a steep drop and up onto the side of a massive 40 foot tall wave wall.  At the top of the wave wall passengers will feel more zero-gravity sensations, then the rafts will head through a bit more slide toward a waterfall and the final pool.

Created by Proslide, Mega Mayhem will utilize a conveyor left to carry the rafts to the top of the tower so riders do not have to.  The park is planning to have the attraction ready when it opens for the 2020 season in May.