OPINION

MIKE MASTERSON: Time Traveler

Ride of century

Dimly lit Heritage Hall at Silver Dollar City was packed with chattering media types and coaster-lovers on "National Roller Coaster Day" in preparation for the Branson area park's unveiling of its largest attraction ever.

Colored lights bathed the stage as appropriate strains of the 1983 hit song "Time After Time" filled the cavernous auditorium and clouds of harmless misty smoke drifted slowly from beneath the structure, adding to the calculated mystique.

The noisy excitement felt to me like some massive family reunion as the crowd for months had anticipated this moment that had been widely promoted as "The Big Reveal."

Lisa Rau, the park's publicity director (who I doubt slept much in weeks leading to this morning) welcomed the throng while explaining what was to come. She said national newspapers from USA Today to the Los Angeles Times and the Today show all have expressed interest in the behemoth that remains under construction.

Brad Thomas is the park's general manager and president of attractions. He's an enthusiastic fireball of a leader for this 110-acre, 57-year-old theme park that has continuously expanded to offer dozens of attractions since opening in 1960. He took center stage as the official big revealer.

Clad in a casual, park-logoed black shirt and khaki slacks, Thomas was anxious to finally disclose the mystery behind what's long been under wraps. "This project has been two years in the making and is the biggest announcement ever at Silver Dollar City," he said, calling it "the ride of the century."

The largest attraction ever constructed by this Top 10 theme park at a cost of $26 million when next spring arrives will become the "world's fastest, steepest and tallest complete-circuit spinning roller coaster" known at the Time Traveler. The precise time involved in riding the only coaster of its kind in the known universe through the forested Ozarks will be one minute and 57 seconds.

Not all that long, you might say. Well, not unless you're strapped into one of four circular passenger cars that continually spin as they blaze along the looping, 3,020-foot track at speeds up to 50.3 miles an hour. For mathematically challenged folks like me, that's over a half-mile.

Yet that's just part of what to expect on this undulating thrill ride that, all hyperbole aside, truly is like no other on the planet from all I saw displayed during the unveiling Wednesday.

Unlike traditional coasters, the Time Traveler won't have any slow "clackety-clacking" steep climbs followed by a sudden drop at the crescendo. Oh no. That would be old-school-coaster. This revolutionary machine, engineered and constructed by the eighth-generation (founded 1780) Mack Rides of Waldkirch, Germany, begins in the opposite direction.

Time Traveler will leave its station building (and any sense of time) with an immediate 10-story, 90-degree--that's straight up and down--plunge (no barbecue beforehand).

And, valued readers, that's only the beginning. The gleaming machine designed to complement the forested Ozarks hills will be the planet's first to feature three inversions. That is the world record for a spinning coaster. The first is a dive loop, then a zero-gravity roll (seen my stomach?), and finally a vertical loop hurtling 95 feet upward. It's all propelled by two synchronized launches in both horizontal and inclined positions. Yep, another first.

Each passenger vehicle will continually spin with adjustable controls. In all, three separate trains each will carry 16 passengers in four vehicles with class-five individual lap-bar restraints.

As it ultimately rises at one point to 100 feet, the track winds up crossing over itself 14 times. And it will hurl travelers experiencing its double launch first from zero to 47 miles per hour in three seconds, then again from 30 to 45 mph in 3.5 seconds.

In his onstage remarks, Thomas welcomed real-time viewers on social media from all over the world and predicted this attraction will be "like no other in the universe" to draw them to Branson. And Thomas introduced Dennis Gordt, the engineer involved in creating Time Traveler, who had traveled from Germany for the event.

As expected, the celebration and hospitality was first-class, even including the acclaimed Missouri State University Chorale that danced and sang to songs created especially for the unveiling.

Later, walking across the park to examine the site where Time Traveler remains under construction, I peered down from its elevated passenger station through a glass floor along the parallel rails plummeting 10 stories that mark the coaster's opening moment. And I tried to imagine just how remarkably busy this building was going to become next spring.

Eyes wide shut

With the eclipse and its related viewing parties set for tomorrow, this ol' Ozarks boy strongly suggests Googling "eclipse blindness" and "permanent eye damage" for a bit of eye-popping revelation before deciding whether any risk of peeking is really worth it.

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Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at [email protected].

Editorial on 08/20/2017

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