This year we want to get to know our neighbors in the coaster website community better and share with you some of the great content that they publish.
Up first, we are showcasing ThrillNetwork.com‘s special feature “Stairway to (coaster) heaven.” The two-part series takes a look at some of the most well-known coasters that have left us over the years. The series includes coasters such as Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Flashback at Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Hypersonic XLC at Kings Dominion.
Below is a section on Busch Garden Williamsburg’s Drachen Fire:
“Just the name alone to an enthusiast conjures up many images. For some pain comes to mind, for some the pure exhilaration of that amazing first drop and for others the image of those glow-in-the-dark trains that would light up the night at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
From the day Drachen Fire opened in 1992, the gigantic Arrow Dynamics looper which stood at 150’ made waves, some good and some bad. The first I knew of the coaster (remember this was before the internet) I was in Virginia Beach and saw a bus drive by with a banner ad for the coaster.
There were many complaints that the coaster was just too fast to be a comfortable ride. For myself, I learned the bumps and jolts of the beast and knew where to hold my head back and where not to and usually had a good ride each time with little head banging.
To add to the ride’s reputation, after only two seasons, in 1994 the park removed a diving corkscrew from the ride’s layout, bringing the number of inversions down to five.
While I personally was a fan of the coaster and enjoyed the many quirky things about the coaster including: a pre-lift drop out of the station with a quick turn to the left up into the lift, a gigantic corkscrew right after the lift and then the huge speed that the coaster picked up at the bottom of the hill following the first corkscrew, I can see why the coaster was so infamous. The monster could easily bash your head around a bit if you weren’t holding it back or paying attention to what was going on.
Even with the issues with the ride, which I believe were either Arrow Dynamics or Busch Gardens trying to push the envelope, the ride didn’t deserve its untimely demise.
The park shut down the coaster in July of 1998 with initial plans to modify the coaster, and then plans to sell the coaster, then a long 3 seasons watching the coaster just rot from the Busch train line which ran through the supports of the coaster if I remember correctly. The last time I was in the park and the coaster was still standing I remember how sad it seemed I couldn’t go ride the coaster, even though it looked perfectly capable of taking on passengers at any moment. The station house still exists and is used by the park for other purposes now. In total Drachen Fire only ran 7 seasons at Busch Gardens.
I guess I could wax nostalgic on Drachen Fire for hours but it is time we moved on.”
See below for links to the entire articles:
Part 1: http://www.thrillnetwork.com/content/stairway-coaster-heaven-part-1-2805/
Part 2: http://www.thrillnetwork.com/content/stairway-coaster-heaven-part-2-2959/
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