Tracking coaster enhancements
Older rides get some love in the off-season
I’ve shared my picks for the 10 most anticipated 2025 North American coasters as well as honorable mention new rides in the U.S. and some wild coasters debuting internationally this year. As much as we all love shiny, new attractions, it’s important for parks to maintain rides already on their midways. It’s especially true for wooden coasters, which require more TLC than their steel counterparts to deliver agreeable ride experiences. Let’s see what some parks are doing this season to improve their coasters.
Last year I journeyed to Lake Compounce in Connecticut to see what all the fuss was about with two different, fairly new approaches to wooden track replacement: The Gravity Group installed its precut vertical wooden track on the park’s nearly 100-year-old woodie, Wildcat, and Skyline Attractions, in partnership with Great Coasters International, switched out some of Boulder Dash’s offending wooden track sections with its all-steel Titan Track. I was happy to report that, in both cases, the rides were remarkably improved.
I’m equally happy to share that the remedial track surgery has continued in the off-season, and both coasters will feature additional replacement track when guests visit this year. The Gravity Group is finishing up its three-year restoration project on Wildcat, while Skyline and GCI are installing 200 feet of Titan Track on Boulder Dash, following the more than 800 feet of new track they added over the past two years.
Other coasters getting Titan Track this year include Prowler at Words of Fun in Missouri, Boss at Six Flags St. Louis, Wodan at Europa-Park in Germany, and Kingdom Coaster at Dutch Wonderland in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, The Gravity Group has been busy installing its engineered precut track on 10 additional rides for this season, including the twin track Racer 75 at Kings Dominion in Virginia, The Raven and The Voyage at Holiday World in Indiana, and the Mighty Canadian Mine Buster at Canada’s Wonderland near Toronto.
The legendary The Beast at Kings Island in Ohio is also getting 1,600 feet of new precut track from The Gravity Group this season. While that may sound like a lot of track (and it is), the project represents only about 22% of The Beast’s course, which at 7,361 feet is the world’s longest wooden coaster.
Tremors, a wooden coaster at Silverwood Theme Park in Idaho, is getting some attention as well. Rocky Mountain Construction offers a third type of ride remediation, 208 ReTrack, which is a steel replacement track based on its revolutionary I-Box track. The company has been trading out sections of Tremors over the past couple of years and is continuing to make improvements this season.
The Great White, a classic out-and-back wooden coaster at Morey’s Piers on the Jersey Shore, isn’t getting new track. But it is on track to receive new Millennium Flyer trains from Great Coasters International. The articulated design of the chassis will allow the trains to better navigate twists and turns and should yield a more stable and comfortable ride.
It’s not a wooden coaster, but the former Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion has a snazzy new look with orange track and black supports as well as a new name: Pantherian. The big cat theme conforms to the Jungle X-Pedition land in which the ride is located. The ride was temporarily renamed “Project 305” last year when the licensing rights lapsed to use the nickname of the late NASCAR star, Dale Earnhardt, who was known as “The Intimidator.”