The man in line to ride Millennium Force did not fit the presumed target audience, the primary demographic, the type of person normally drawn to transportation that distorts faces, elevates voices and sends individual vertebrae in unintended directions.
I saw no tattoos, no pierced body parts. I heard no hints of adolescence in his speech. His shirt, which left his midriff unexposed, had buttons.
So I asked Ben Novrocki–in line to ride Millennium Force, the most respected, most feared, most extreme steel roller coaster in North America–a question:
What in the world are you doing here?
He looked me straight in the eye.
“Next year,” he said, “I’ll be too old.”
Too old.
Ben Novrocki, as he stood in line, was 71.
Welcome–lap bars down, stomach churning and arms defiantly raised — to Cedar Point.
There is something about roller coasters that mines the madness in otherwise sane people. Maybe because, bottom line, riding roller coasters is so completely, utterly stupid.
There are 15 roller coasters at Cedar Point Amusement Park. Fifteen. No existing park anywhere has more.
Six Flags Great America, a big-league amusement park in Gurnee, has a mere 12; so does celebrated Paramount’s King’s Island, near Cincinnati. Northwest Iowa’s Arnolds Park has The Legend, a legendary wooden coaster celebrating its 75th year–and only one other.
Chicago’s fabled Riverview Park, shut down after the 1967 season, never had more than 11–though the Bobs was awfully good.
Cedar Point? Its 15 range from gentle Junior Gemini, a mom-and-pop-and-the-kiddies ride (top speed: 6 m.p.h.) to outrageous Millennium Force (top speed: 93 m.p.h.).
In between are such joyful scare machines as Mantis (a stand-up coaster–imagine what that feels like), Raptor (your legs dangle as you go upside-down six times) and Magnum XL-200 (72 m.p.h., three tunnels and lots of butt-lifting bunny hills).
The newest at Cedar Point is this year’s Wicked Twister–“the world’s tallest and fastest `double-twisting’ impulse roller coaster.” From the photos (we haven’t seen this baby yet; my most recent visit was last season), it certainly looks wicked and it absolutely twists, but the ” `double-twisting’ impulse” designation limits the competition. (Just to clarify: “Impulse” means the train goes back and fourth on a U-shaped track, as opposed to making a one-way journey for a mile or so; the “double-twisting” means the track twists — 450 degrees — at each end of the U. In all, the ride takes you back and forth five times. That’s 10 wicked twists.)
Millennium Force is the tallest and fastest roller coaster in North America. No qualifiers. Tallest. Fastest. According to a consensus of coaster-fan and industry Web sites, it’s also the best. You may get arguments, even at Cedar Point.
“Magnum’s our sentimental favorite,” said Cedar Point spokesman Bryan Edwards. “People have loved it for years.” Opened in 1989, it was No. 1 in lots of polls until 2001, when the year-old Millennium Force zoomed past it.
“For Millennium Force to displace it as the best coaster in the world in only its second year is a real testament to how well that coaster was designed and built.”
As is the ride’s popularity.
“Last Saturday,” said a lad monitoring the line, “it was 2 1/2 hours.”
Stuffing the stuffed animal
On this weekday afternoon, the wait was a mere hour. As we spoke, a young lady carrying an adorable stuffed beast, probably hard-won by her date, moved toward the start of the line.
“I’m sorry,” said the lad. “You have to leave that in a locker or with a non-rider.”
Whereupon she slam-dunked it into a trash can.
It is possible to describe a ride on Millennium Force. That’s why I rode it. Unfortunately, my hands were shaking so hard after the ride that, as I write this, my notes are unreadable.
But here’s what I remember:
Unlike most coasters we know and love, Millennium Force does not chunka-chunka-chunka as it slowly gains altitude. The mechanism that lifts this train 310 feet off the ground is more like a rising elevator. Smooth. No chunka. (Climbing speed on Magnum, which chunkas, is about 5 feet per second; on Millennium, it’s 20 feet per second.)
At the apex, the apogee, the very top, the Millennium Force train seems to pause. That gives everyone a chance to realize that they are 310 feet off the ground and something nasty is about to take place!
Then it spills over the top. Slowly, at first. Then . . .
Now, this may be hard to explain, but I’ll give it a shot: An angle of 90 degrees is straight down. The angle of that first, 310-foot, hill on Millennium Force is 80 degrees. That’s almost straight down.
What it feels like, streaking to earth at 93 miles an hour, is like it’s going underneath itself. If you’re in the first seat, as I was, you’re sure the back of the train is going to flip over you.
Which is why I can’t read my notes.
It’s also why I wanted to ride it again.
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It started in 1870
Cedar Point, like most amusement and theme parks, isn’t just roller coasters. There are slower rides (including an antique carousel). There are live shows that–having seen three–are more than just an excuse to get into air conditioning.
There is food and there are midway games and there are twinkling lights and all the other things that amusement parks have been amusing us with for years. Soak City is an 18-acre on-site water park. There are go-karts. The bungee-like RipCord Skycoaster. Mini-golf.
Cedar Point also has some history.
The park first opened in 1870, six years before Custer made his unfortunate career move. The first roller coaster–the Switchback Railway–opened 22 years later. The cars had to be hauled back up to the start after every ride, which is only part of the reason the Switchback Railway is no longer in operation.
The Lake Erie beachfront Hotel Breakers, one of a handful of offered lodgings, opened its doors in 1905. Lovers of restored neat old hotels will like this one a lot.
According to “Cedar Point: The Queen of American Watering Places,” a neat book (with lots of pictures) by David and Diane Francis, Caruso stayed here. John D. Rockefeller stayed here. Notre Dame icons Knute Rockne and Gus Dorais worked as lifeguards on the beach in 1913, fiddling around with a concept that would become known as “the forward pass.”
There were problems, of course. Prohibition took away some of the fun, and the Great Depression took away most of the patrons. Gambling was introduced, then was shut down. The place deteriorated through World War II, and general smarm took hold in the 1950s, when the circa 1929 Cyclone–at the time the park’s last remaining roller coaster–was razed. The opening, in 1964, of the Blue Streak–the Return of the Roller Coaster–began what eventually would be the new Cedar Point. By 1987, there were seven roller coasters on site. Two years later, Magnum XL-200 became the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. And now Cedar Point is what it is: heaven for coaster buffs.
Given the reality of lines, sprawl and recovery time, can someone ride all 15 in one day without resorting to trickery, bribery or getting to know Cedar Point spokesman Bryan Edwards, my new best friend?
“In early May, yes,” said Edwards. The kids are still in school, few people are on vacations, and lines are short, he said. From the 4th of July through Labor Day, you’ve got no shot — but try it after Labor Day through October, he said, when the park is open weekends.
“That’s a great time to come,” Edwards said.
Kevin Kolb, 35, didn’t have the look of a man who believed there is a great time to come to Cedar Point. But here he was, among the tee-shirted and body-pierced and adolescent, in the Millennium Force line.
I asked him why he was here.
“I don’t know,” he said. “My wife.”
So I asked his wife what she was doing here.
“I love roller coasters,” she said
Kevin Kolb just shook his head.
“Last time I was here, I wouldn’t go on the Magnum,” he said. “They talked me into that. I figure this couldn’t be much worse.”
Nervous?
“Yeah,” said the poor man. “I’ve got a little thing with heights. This is going to be insane.”
Yep.
Yaaaaaahhhhhhh . . .
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
Cedar Point is connected by causeway to Sandusky, Ohio, which is midway between Toledo and Cleveland (an hour’s drive from either) and about 300 miles from Chicago, almost entirely via Interstate Highway 90. Several airlines (including Continental, United and American) fly non-stop into Cleveland from Chicago at fares less than $200.
STAYING THERE
Park properties include the Hotel Breakers, Breakers Express, Sandcastle Suites Hotel and a Radisson, a campground and Lighthouse Point, which has cottages and cabins. Additional accommodations are available off-site. Prices are seasonal.
THE SEASON
Cedar Point, daily through Labor Day, then weekends through Oct. 27. Soak City water park, daily through Labor Day.
ADMISSION
One-day tickets, $42, ages 4-59, 48 inches or taller. For Soak City only, $23. Also available: Senior and junior rates, twilight rates, group rates and a variety of combinations.
INFORMATION
Call 419-627-2350, or check www.cedarpoint.com on the Web.
— Alan Solomon