November 8, 2006

Wet and competitive

Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom plans slide where people race against each other.

By Kurt Blumenau Of The Morning Call, Allentown, PA

A six-lane, open-air water slide called a mat racer will be Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom's newest attraction next year, if local officials decide to go along for the ride.

Dorney Park has asked South Whitehall Township for permission to build the mat racer, a downhill slope that works a little like a sledding hill without the snow. Riders lie down on a mat and race down the water slide, trying to beat each other to the pool at the bottom.

Other amusement parks with similar rides include Walt Disney World's Blizzard Beach water park in Orlando, Fla.; Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Ill.; and Water Safari Enchanted Forest in Old Forge, N.Y.

The mat racer will replace the Torpedo Tubes, a pair of enclosed corkscrew-style water rides that had been at the park since 1988. Park spokeswoman Heather Kramer said the Torpedo Tubes have been taken down.

The announcement of the mat racer follows an established development pattern by Dorney Park's owner, Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. of Ohio. Cedar Fair typically adds a major ride at Dorney every three years, making smaller changes in the intervening years. Dorney's last major upgrade, the Hydra: The Revenge floorless roller coaster, opened in 2005.

''We're always trying to freshen [the park] up,'' Kramer said.

Kramer did not know the cost of the mat racer, or its height. Early plans filed with the township indicate only that the ride will be less than 50 feet tall.

More detailed plans will be filed before the park gets building permits, township officials said. Also, more details may be made available this month, when Cedar Fair releases its company-wide capital spending plans.

The mat racer will not be built on the former site of the Torpedo Tubes. Instead, it is slated to be built on a nearby hillside, next to the wave pool.

Early reaction to the mat racer has been largely positive on online discussion boards where amusement park aficionados gather.

''Wow, that will be a great addition,'' a user called Yoshi posted at http://www.dorneyonline.com , an unofficial, independent site featuring Dorney-themed discussion forums. ''If it's like the one at Blizzard Beach, it's a lot of fun and has decent capacity [at least compared to other waterpark attractions.] ''

Lance Hart of Charlotte, N.C., who runs another theme-park Web site called Screamscape.com, described mat racers as ''kind of an old-school waterpark item that has become cool again.

''I like them and I'm glad to see them come back again because they are high-capacity attractions, and interactive in the sense that people can race side by side down with friends or other guests,'' Hart wrote in an e-mail. ''Otherwise, waterpark attractions are mostly a solitary experience, other than the occasional group raft or tube slide.''

http://www.mcall.com/business/local/all-do...sinesslocal-hed

Another C.F. park announcement, thus proving that there's still annoucing to do.

I hope Kings Island is next.

Well, the fact that there are more announcements to come is not really news. In the conference call on the first of the month, they said that they would be further detailing their capital expenditures for 2007 later this month, as that article mentions. Only time will tell what, if anything, is announced for improvements to Kings Island for next season.

Interesting that they quoted Lance Hart of Screamscape... I'd agree with him - Coolangatta Racer at Boomerang Bay, and Splashin' Safari's Jungle Racer are a couple of great, fast, competitive slides families and friends can do together!