A roller coaster for roller coaster nerds

Tucked away in the wooded suburbs south of Atlanta is a small, family-owned amusement park that used to draw customers thanks to simple rides like the Ferris wheel, bumper boats, Tilt-a-Whirl, go-kart tracks, Scooby Swing, and batting cages.

But since this year Nice place America Atlanta has transformed itself into something of a destination for the country’s roller coaster aficionados, with the unveiling of a marquee, Ari Force One.

It towers over the verdant landscape, its steel rails glinting in the Georgia sun. Visible from Highway 85, the 150-foot lift hill and steep first run beckon and intimidate passersby.

The ride is one of the latest designed by Rocky Mountain Construction, a roller coaster manufacturer that has become one of the most innovative in the industry over the past decade. The company is a particular favorite among roller coaster fans who take special trips to theme parks across the country to check out the latest in thrill-seeking advancements. And Rocky Mountain Construction’s latest creation was the main reason I visited Fun Spot last Saturday.

Another manufacturer on the wow list is Bolliger & Mabillard, a Swiss company focused on bold, smooth steel rides, including a new stand-up roller coaster at SeaWorld Orlando. Yet another company, Intamin, has made a name for itself with coasters and rides of extreme heights and speeds.

You will hear the abbreviated terms for these companies – “RMC” for Rocky Mountain Construction; “B&M” for Bolliger & Mabillard – tossed about at events attended by roller coaster enthusiasts, including the annual CoasterMania! at Cedar Point theme park in Sandusky, Ohio. The day before my trip to Fun Spot America Atlanta I was at the CoasterMania! revelers riding rollercoasters built by each of these three top designers.

Events like Coastermania! give rollercoaster nerds like me the chance to wallow in the details of a great ride with like-minded people. We get to express what’s so great about the various twists and turns, discuss rumors of what’s to come in theme parks around the world, and have exclusive time to ride (and ride again) rollercoasters early in the morning, before the parks officially open to the public.

This year we talked a lot about RMC as we lined up for Steel Vengeance, one of the wildest and most ambitious coasters the company has made.

The manufacturer has become known for taking old wooden roller coasters whose rides have become too rough and retrofitting them with steel rails, preserving much of the wood structure and turning the rides into hybrid roller coasters.

Fred Grubb, who founded RMC with Suanne Dedmon, worked with the engineer Alan Schilke to come up with their own brand of track for this purpose, the I-Box track. This innovation allows for creative tricks such as banked turns and inversions that give those on board a feeling of weightlessness.

For the recently unveiled ArieForce One at Fun Spot, RMC didn’t re-profile an old wooden coaster, but built it from scratch with steel supports. The most talked-about element of the ride is the zero-G stall. Riders go upside down in an arc and feel like they’re floating for about four seconds. Fun Spot says its new coaster has the longest zero-G stall in the country.

ArieForce One was named after Fun Spot America CEO and owner John Arie Jr., who said in a press release that the jet-themed coaster was “a tribute to my dad and his passion for flying.” And, boy, does it fly. Once you’re over the elevator, the ride clocks in at a relatively short 45 seconds, but it doesn’t waste a single one.

After the first drop, the ride transitions into what RMC calls a raven truss dive. In this part of the ride, the track turns you around and you dive the other way. From there, ArieForce One manages to fit in two barrel rolls before concluding with four quick airtime hops that bounce you out of your seat before the too-quick end.

“I saw Jesus and I came back,” said an exhausted rider behind me.

At the station for my third ride, a girl who had sat down in her seat before the ride began to cry and asked her father if they could get off. He said OK, which was probably the right choice, because ArieForce One turns out surprisingly. That said, I’ve ridden it seven times.

Before one of my rides, I saw two guys lined up wearing roller coaster T-shirts from other parks (Mako at SeaWorld Orlando and Time Traveler at Silver Dollar City). I realized that, like me, they did a little bit of coaster tourism.

They said they came to Fun Spot from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and one of them, Brandon Cummings, recently started a YouTube channel, CoasterNotes. They were both impressed with ArieForce One. “It’s definitely a lot more aggressive than I expected,” said Mr. Cummings, “but they got it right.”

So what exactly is the secret of an RMC creation? What about this company that buzzes people and tours to ride its rollercoasters all over the country? How does the company keep doing? In a video call, I spoke with Jake Kilcup, technical director at Rocky Mountain Construction, about the company’s design strategy and goals. Below are edited excerpts from that conversation.

How long have you been with Rocky Mountain Construction?

I joined the company in 2009. I came in as a designer and draftsman. I have my degree in architecture. For example, I grew up with a fascination for houses and ended up on rollercoasters.

So you were there during a crucial time of change.

I came in when the company had just come up with the I-Box track concept and had just landed their first contract.

How has the I-Box track changed steel coasters?

In the past, when it came to steel coasters, they were all made of tubing, almost like a giant exhaust bender that bends heavy tubing into shape. But what we do is take a steel plate and make a double webbed I-beam with a rail box. We ride on a flat surface, while most other steel roller coasters out there run on a round surface.

How does this make a difference?

When we build from sheet metal, we don’t physically bend anything in such a way that it changes shape in any way. All those track pieces are built by hand and with clamps. So it actually lends itself to making the smoothest roller coasters in the world.

Your rides have fun elements like wave turns that flip riders horizontally and zero-G rolls that flip riders upside down. Where do these ideas come from?

Well, Alan Schilke, something of a legend in the industry, does all the layouts for our rides. And Joe Draves is his protege. We talk all the time about how to create the feeling you get when you do a certain trick on a snowboard or on skis. It’s something most people would never do in their lives because it’s hard and risky. And how do we get that on a roller coaster, where it’s essentially a free gift, but you still get that incredible feeling?

Besides ArieForce One, do you have a good recent example of an RMC-like element?

We’re opening an attraction in Hershey, Pa., called now Revenge of the wild cat. Near the drop hill, the first major element in the ride is an underfoot movement, which is a snowboarding movement. It rolls to one side, but then pivots to the other. That’s straight out of extreme sports, right there.

ArieForce One is a short roller coaster with a lot of power. What are you most proud of having accomplished on this ride?

We had some design constraints due to zoning regulations. They were tricky at the time, but they lead to creativity that you never would have found if you didn’t have them. We have some elements that go over a building at Fun Spot, and we had a ceiling that we had to stay under, which required a very aggressive barrel roll over the building. There’s a lot of eye candy on that ride. But I’m always looking for the more subtle surprise on every ride, and that barrel roll sneaks up on people.

There is an element here that I have not seen before. Can you describe the raven truss dive?

A raven turn is essentially half a loop. We go to the top, we turn upside down, and then we dive straight down to the ground. It’s almost the combination of a barrel roll and a loop.

And then right after that there’s the signature zero-G stall. How did you work to make it the largest in the country?

It really comes down to speed because our goal is to be at zero-G throughout that stable. So you’re not sitting on your seat, and you’re not hanging from the lap bar. You just float like an astronaut, that’s the feeling you’re going for. So we have to take what we think our typical speed will be and then design that whole element around those speeds to hold that zero-G. And there’s nothing between you and the ground 100 feet below.

The scale of this ride is much larger than anything else at Fun Spot America Atlanta. How did you come to design this big aggressive roller coaster in this small park?

We had Fun Spot get a hold of us and say, “Hey, we’re interested in doing something.” And I’ll be honest, the first thing we thought was, okay, how do we put together a good value for them on a smaller scale? And they said, “No, no, stop right now. We want something big. We’re looking for a boost. We’re looking for something that will make people pay attention.” And at that moment we were on board.

A video above of riders on ArieForce One was captured at a lower frame rate.