Wicked (roller coaster)

Wicked
Wicked's launch tower, September 2007
Lagoon Amusement Park
Location	Lagoon Amusement Park
Park section	South Midway
Coordinates	40°59′02″N 111°53′44″W
Status	Operating
Opening date	June 1, 2007
Cost	$10,000,000
General statistics
Type	Steel – Launched
Manufacturer	Zierer
Designer	Dal Freeman/Lagoon Corporation and Ingenieur Büro Stengel GmbH
Model	Tower Launch Coaster
Track layout	Out and back
Lift/launch system	Linear Synchronous Motors (LSM) Horizontal & Vertical Launch Sections
Height	110 ft (34 m)
Length	2,050.5 ft (625.0 m)
Speed	55 mph (89 km/h)
Inversions	1
Duration	1:36
Max vertical angle	90°
Capacity	900 riders per hour
G-force	4.9
Height restriction	46 in (117 cm)
Trains	6 trains with a single car. Riders are arranged 4 across in 2 rows for a total of 8 riders per train.
Wicked at RCDB

Wicked is a launched steel roller coaster located at Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington, Utah, United States. It opened on June 1, 2007, just over 2 months after park opening due to gaps in the track that required re-welding. It is currently the second tallest roller coaster at Lagoon, surpassed only by Cannibal.

Description

Wicked is located at the front (west side) of the park and is easily seen from I-15. It has a green track with mostly silver supports, the only exception being the bright yellow supports of the launch tower.

Elements: horizontal to vertical launch, launch tower, airtime hill, Immelmann turn, heartline roll (Zero-G Roll), double halfpipe, and a tunnel.

Wicked on its inversion, June 2007

Wicked was designed by Dal Freeman/Lagoon Corporation, manufactured by Zierer, and fabricated by Stakotra Manufacturing. The ride is thrilling because the car is launched to high speed vertically without any significant warning, has a 90-degree descent on the tower hill, pulls 4.885 gs, features a unique lap-bar restraint, and features an Immelmann turn and heartline roll. It was rumored to be named by the daughter of Dal Freeman (a designer/engineer of Magnum XL-200) as "Wicked," after the famous musical and book, or after the fact that the design looked "wicked" to her. Wicked was the first LSM (linear synchronous motor) launched roller coaster to utilize a flywheel inverter. The LSMs are not only used for launching the trains, but for also braking the trains. The energy recovered by braking the trains is used to spin the flywheel inverter where potential energy is stored and used to launch the trains.

Riders start by turning into a dark tunnel with a siren and a loud boom, before shooting straight up the 110 ft vertical launch hill at 40 MPH, cresting, and then descending vertically down the other side of the tower at speeds reaching 55 MPH. Riders then go up and over a small airtime hill with a trim brake, before going up and quickly flipping around an Immelmann turn. The track levels out before sending riders up into a heartline roll. They then descend and then quickly pass around a small, shallow turn into the trim/safety brake.

Riders descend into a double half-pipe, then being twisted to the right, left, then into a right half downward helix, then twisting to the left, then descending into a trench covered by a tunnel, before ascending and leveling out into the reduction brake run as the ride ends.

Incidents

In 2014, a train that had been dispatched for launch unexpectedly lost speed after the initial acceleration track, causing the train to roll back through the section. The train was re-dispatched and was able to complete the layout. Nobody was injured. There have also been multiple cases of the cart rolling back after not gaining enough acceleration up the 90 degree launch, however no one is injured, all they do is relaunch the cart back up the hill. With the key factor launching it being magnets it is not always a 100 percent guarantee for it to work everytime, so this is expected, like Jet Star 2 ..

External links

Media related to Wicked (Lagoon) at Wikimedia Commons