California's Great America building Mack launch coaster in 2023 or 2024?

[Matt N]

Hi guys. According to Screamscape, California's Great America could be starting to plan their next roller coaster, and it would appear that their plans have changed somewhat since the last rumour based on what Lance has posted. Here's what he had to say:

2023/2024 - Launched Coaster - Rumor - (11/7/21) Not much to report right now, but hearing that California’s Great America could be in the early phases of planning for the park’s next coaster. The early contender being considered so far is said to be a launched coaster, which was included as part of an approved masterplan presented to the city several years ago. One concept rumored to be under consideration for the park would be a multi-launch coaster from Mack Rides, not unlike Copperhead Strike at Carowinds, but with a custom layout.

Also, the planned hyper coaster was confirmed a few months back to have been canned at least in the short term; according to another post Lance made, the CoasterStock 2021 event at Kings Island earlier this year revealed that the B&M coaster originally in the pipeline at CGA was cancelled in June 2018, and the planned B&M ride was redesigned for a different Cedar Fair park, instead going to Kings Island in the form of Orion:

???? - New Hyper Coaster - Indefinite Hold - (7/25/21) Remember how long before the pandemic California's Great America had filed paperwork to get clearance from the FAA to build a very tall roller coaster? Following the new master plan filed after Cedar Fair bought the property under the park from the city in 2016 the let it be known they wanted to build a new steel coaster over 200 feet tall. In 2018 the height variance to the FAA was found mentioning a 210 foot tall steel coaster with a construction timeline of March to December 2019 which would have saw it open for the 2020 season.
Those plans and applications then vanished and now we know why. A new post from Coaster101 with details mentioned at Coasterstock 2021 at Kings Island shed a little light on the missing CGA coaster and a connection to Kings Island’s ORION that opened in 2020 instead. According to the Coaster101 update, the original contract Cedar Fair had with B&M for a 2020 ride was indeed for California’s Great America, with the design work for the project working under the codename “Megabite”. They say that as construction costs for the Megabite project began to soar Cedar Fair opted in June 2018 to switch and redesign the B&M project to Kings Island for 2020 instead, resulting in Orion.
Time will tell if the corporate office decides to revive this project or not.

What are our thoughts? I personally reckon a Mack launcher is a fair shout; the timeframe allows Cedar Fair to gage whether Copperhead Strike was successful and plan a ride accordingly, and the park also lacks a ride of this vein.

Here's Screamscape's CGA page, if anyone's interested: https://www.screamscape.com/html/california-s_great_america.htm

 

[CoasterHour]

Hi guys. According to Screamscape, California's Great America could be starting to plan their next roller coaster, and it would appear that their plans have changed somewhat since the last rumour based on what Lance has posted. Here's what he had to say:

Also, the planned hyper coaster was confirmed a few months back to have been canned at least in the short term; according to another post Lance made, the CoasterStock 2021 event at Kings Island earlier this year revealed that the B&M coaster originally in the pipeline at CGA was cancelled in June 2018, and the planned B&M ride was redesigned for a different Cedar Fair park, instead going to Kings Island in the form of Orion:

What are our thoughts? I personally reckon a Mack launcher is a fair shout; the timeframe allows Cedar Fair to gage whether Copperhead Strike was successful and plan a ride accordingly, and the park also lacks a ride of this vein.

Here's Screamscape's CGA page, if anyone's interested: https://www.screamscape.com/html/california-s_great_america.htm

The timing of this posted rumor is just weird now that we know of Wicked Twister's fate, but the MACK Multi-Launch would make a lot of sense for Great America and you’re right about the time frame. Since this is early planning I'm still not fully expecting this to really happen, but I'd love to see it.