Maverick: The Old West Was Never This Wild

If you thought the west couldn’t get any wilder—you were wrong.  This western themed coaster sits on the appropriately placed west part of the park right across from Steel Vengeance.   Although this ride is a metal coaster, it whips and jerks you  around like its made of purely wood and nails.  The ride experience certainly fits the theme of “The Old West Was Never This Wild” because it is most definitely a wild ride.

Maverick was completed and opened in May of 2007 by Intamin.  This was also roller coaster designer Werner Stengel’s 500^th roller coaster design.  Maverick is also the first ride to feature a twisted horseshoe roll, a corkscrew that leads into a 180-degree banked turn and ends with another corkscrew that rotates in the opposite direction as the first.  In October of 2005, the log flume ride that used to be where Maverick is currently situated retired and construction began shortly after in the following February.   The ride was completed in late 2006 and testing began in January of 2007.  Originally, the ride was planned to open on May 12^th, 2007, but 4 days prior the park manager announced the opening needed to be postponed because three 40-foot sections of track needed to be replaced.   These pieced of track composed the original heart-line roll part of the ride.  Engineers ended up abandoning the heart-line roll and replacing it with an s-curve.

The ride begins with not a lift up the hill, but a launch.  Engineers on the project decided to use a LSM, or a Linear Motor, to launch the train up the lift hill, reaching the peak in less than 10 seconds.  Upon reaching the peak, riders are dropped in a 95 degree fall of 100 feet.  The ride reaches a speed of 57 miles per hour.  The ride isn’t very fast purely because most of the ride is composed of twists and turns, and if the train travels too fast it could pose a threat to the riders.  The ride then experiences a series of banked turns before embarking on the twisted horseshoe roll.   Following the horseshoe roll is a 400-foot tunnel underneath the station, in which the ride is slowed down and then launched to the maximum speed of the ride of 70 miles per hour.   After exiting the tunnel, the ride hits a series of brakes while climbing an incline before falling into an elevated banked turn.  The last attraction is the s-curve which navigates riders through a series of rock walls.  Its because of these rock walls that there is a height restriction on the ride.  The rest of the ride is comprised of twists and turns before finally taxiing back into the station.

A few blogs ago I received a comment that has certainly influenced the way I rate coasters.  I will be rating them based on height, speed, inversion quality, and uniqueness.  As far as speed goes, Maverick receives a 7 out of 10; it’s not a very fast coaster, but for a ride that, apart from the lift hill and launch track, is composed entirely out of twisted track, it’s pretty fast for its design.  For height, even though it is a small drop, I am giving it a 7 out of 10 as well because it has that wow factor in the 95 degree drop, therefore, making it a very invigorating part of the ride.  For inversion quality it receives a 10 out of 10; I can confidently say that there is no coaster that is more entertaining than Maverick when it comes to inversions.  For uniqueness it also receives a 10 out of 10 because for its time there was absolutely no ride like it.  By averaging these scores together, Maverick receives a final rating of 8.5 out of 10.