After 39 years and nearly 40 million rides, Carowinds is retiring the park’s wooden racing coaster, Thunder Road.
Photo © Carowinds
The coaster will carry its last guests on July 26.
The ride was originally named after the 1958 movie, Thunder Road.
Photo © Carowinds
The Curtis D. Summers-designed coaster features twin, parallel racing trains which reach top speeds of 45 mph.
Photo © Carowinds
The trains “race in and out of North and South Carolina, so riders can choose to take part in a friendly Carolina rivalry.”
Thunder Road Fun Facts:
- The coaster was built using 539,000 feet of treated wood at a cost of $1.6 million.
- Thunder Road is modeled after the Racer, another classic wooden racing coaster at sister park Kings Island in Ohio.
- The coaster was originally covered in 5,500 gallons of red, white and blue paint.
- From 1995 to 2008, one of the trains faced backward giving riders an even greater thrill.
Photo © Carowinds
According to the park, the coaster is closing “to make room for future park growth which is part of a more than $50 million multi-year investment plan.”
The coaster is located in the southwestern area of the park, just south of the park’s Boomerang Bay water park:
Considering the location of Thunder Road, I speculate we may see an expansion of Boomerang Bay in the coming years.
The park is planning to celebrate the ride’s over the coming months with special to-be-announced in-park surprises and giveaways.
You have until July 26, 2o15 at 10 p.m. to take part in the Thunder Road celebration.
For information visit the park’s website.
How about you remove the apparently terrible Hurler instead of this almost forty year old coaster that isn’t hated. Why is it worth keeping Hurler over Thunder Road, and before you say waterpark expansion, look at Minebuster at Canada’s Wonerland, they didn’t close it down and remove it, instead they modified it and had the slides go through it, sure Minebuster isn’t the most loved wooden coaster, but they didn’t tear it out, Thunder Road DOESN’T HAVE TO LEAVE to let the waterpark expand. What is wrong with you management, how can you make a good decision in Fury and screw up removing the wrong wooden coaster.
Can someone explain to me why it would be better to remove Thunder Road over Hurler just from the ride standpoint? Thunder Road isn’t terrible, I mean in the 2013 Mitch Hawker wooden coaster poll it ranked 29 points above Hurler.
I know that MH isn’t the most reliable in ranking, but it does show trends, I mean Hades started out in the top ten and fell to 31 over the years. Plus if you look at Hurler’s stats you see a pretty steady decline from 24 while Thunder Road has stayed steady since 2008 peaking at 111 and valleying at 119 in 2012, Hurler in that same time period peaked at 110, BUT slipped down to 147 by 2013, which is caused by roughness and lack of upkeep.
I thought that you were supposed to get RID of bad rides, not get rid of decent rides and leave bad rides. If another bad decision is made, they may reach the Mount Olympus point, which is where I say that they can’t do anything right even with Fury 325.
I’m honestly starting to lose faith in the US parks with wooden coasters, first the announcement of Mistake 360, then the announcement of Nightmare’s demolition after letting it rot for ten years (making the owner a criminal in my book), then the rumors of this and the confirmation, on top of the only wooden coasters opening this year in the US being small ones at smaller parks.
This is a terrible decision this is one of my favorite roller coasters in the world and I totally hate the boomerang bay at Carowinds this is the worst news ever I can’t believe it is happening I want to scream at the park managers