If you live to be scared senseless — the sort of person who loves things like wing-walking, riding human catapults, and wildwiring — you’re no doubt a roller coaster fan. However, even the world’s most eye-popping coasters can get stale, which is why designers are compelled to build their next rides taller, longer, and faster. In 2019, Canada’s Wonderland is looking to top them all (literally) with an all-new, one-of-a-kind, record-setting dive coaster.
Let’s cut to the headline: Yukon Striker will be the “the longest, fastest, and tallest dive roller coaster in the world.” For those not in-the-know, a dive coaster has a “straight vertical drop with riders facing down (that) creates a different ride experience.” Even if you’re not a coaster aficionado, the stats are indeed impressive. During the 3.5-minute ride, passengers will cover 3,625 feet (roughly the length of 12 football fields) at a maximum speed of 80 miles per hour.
But the raw numbers don’t tell the whole story of this monster. The record-setting coaster features four complete inversions (that’s being turned upside-down, then righted) including a 360-degree loop which is reportedly the first of its kind for a dive coaster. Yukon Stiker’s pièce de résistance, however, is its massive, 245-foot vertical drop, the highest for any dive coaster in the world. Passengers are suspended for three seconds at the top of the descent before plunging back to earth and into an underground tunnel. The best part? The ride is completely floorless for “enhanced visibility” — marketing jargon for “really, really terrifying.”
Canada’s Wonderland was Canada’s first amusement park and still is the country’s largest. The sprawling attraction covers more than 330 acres not far from downtown Toronto. It’s an icon of the amusement park scene (yes, that’s really a thing) to which bucket list travelers venture from all over the world to experience.
Yukon Striker is set to debut in April 2019. If the ride seems like a little too much seat-of-your-pants terror, the park is also home to 16 tamer (read lamer) roller coasters. When you’re done with those, you can ride the Jumpin’ Jet and Lucy’s Tugboat with the other eight-year-olds.
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