Welcome to a very special edition of "Rumors of the Road" on your source for Cedar Point information, The Point Online presented by me, Sgt.RoadKill. In the past weeks rumors have began to run wild about Cedar Point’s new lawn ornament Top Thrill Dragster. I’m bringing you the latest information about the ride as well as all of the rumors that I can fit into this article about the ride. So prepare yourself for nothing but Top Thrill Dragster in this "No Spin" edition of "Rumors of the Road".

Well as must of you already know Top Thrill Dragster is closed again. What some of you might not know it may be closed for the rest of the season. Cedar Point is hoping for a holiday weekend opening of Top Thrill Dragster in time for July 4, which could mean another temporary opening of the ride. If the ride is not fixed by mid-July it will be closed for the entire season. Now I’m glad Cedar Point is being honest with us but come on couldn’t Intamin have done something to have prevented this?

Cedar Point for the past month has downplayed the problems with Top Thrill Dragster, and then tells us "Well we’ll try again next year". Now I liked to be told the truth from the beginning and not be played with the run-around game. Maybe they should change the sign in front of the park each day from "Top Thrill Dragster will not be open today please accept our apologies" to "Top Thrill Dragster will not open until next season please accept out apologies". Now if Cedar Point does leave this ride closed we won’t be as shocked but if they do open it back up then we will all be singing praises to the engineers working on the ride. Honesty is the best policy and hopefully next time Cedar Point uses it when they first find out the complexity of the problem of a ride.

Now I can say that an estimated over seventy-five percent of you are upset over Top Thrill Dragster being closed. Maybe it’s time now for Cedar Point to concentrate more of how to pull themselves out of a big hole for the 2003 operating season. If Dragster remains closed the publics view of the park will plummet as well as the revenues brought in by the park. If you advertise the world’s tallest, fastest roller coaster for months on end and then have to explain to guests why they can’t ride it, they won’t be so kind and understanding. Please though be aware the closure isn’t set in stone and all of us are hoping, as well as Cedar Point, that it will open again for the rest of the season.

Lawsuits are something that no company wants to be involved in. Could we see a large lawsuit occur between Cedar Point and Intamin? If the ride does stay closed for the remainder of the season, yes. If the ride opens after the holiday weekend and continues to stay open, no. Cedar Point would then have the basis to sue Intamin for lost revenue due to the closure of Dragster, unless the contract they had with Intamin had stipulations involved. Depending what the contract states that Cedar Point had with Intamin they could also sue for misleading advertising, if Intamin advertised Dragster as being a ride that would have minimal downtime, as well as many other issues. Could this be a long and lengthy legal process yes, but would it help Cedar Fair even out it’s loses that it has with this ride if it stays closed, yes. That is something we’ll have to look at in the future.

Closing the ride could have an effect on Cedar Point's future plans. Kinzel noted to the Sandusky Register that the park's expansion plans are pivotal to what happens with Top Thrill Dragster this year. Could this past statement mean that Cedar Point is currently planning another ride to be built by Intamin in the next couple seasons? To me, that is the only thing that this could mean. Yes, future projects might be delayed or hurried due to Dragsters problems but my greatest understanding is that it has to do with another roller coaster being developed for Cedar Point. Could that project be delayed or cancelled because of the problems that have arose with Dragster? Yes. Intamin has engineered Cedar Point’s last three coasters. Could this be the end of the line for the relationship that Cedar Fair and Intamin have had?

What could Cedar Point have had planned with Intamin for a future roller coaster? Could it have been a flying coaster or a multi-inversion coaster? Those two options seem the most likely because they are the weak points of Cedar Point’s collection at the current time. Intamin has built multi-inversion coasters before and that’s why I believe that it would have been the most likely choice if Cedar Point were working on a coaster deal with Intamin. But, rumors are rumors and I haven’t heard anything enough yet to believe it. If Intamin were to create a flying coaster would it be known to be on the same levels as the almighty Millennium Force or would it have been as injury prone as Top Thrill Dragster? We may never know what the future was supposed to hold out for us all because of this one ride. One ride can decide what the future holds for us. It’s pretty amazing what the power of one ride holds. Remember the slogan for Millennium Force "The future is riding on it". Maybe that should have been the slogan for Top Thrill Dragster.

Could Top Thrill Dragster run at this current time? Yes, but for how long? I say that it would be able to run but it would begin to slowly destroy it’s own Hydraulic Launching system into a state where it would have more problems then it would have right now leaving it to rest for the entire season. There is a chance though even if they don’t run it that it’ll be closed for the entire season so take your choice which you would rather have. It’s up to Cedar Point if they want to open it up temporarily for the 4^th of July weekend then shut it down again or leave it completely shutdown until they find a solution. Either way they would be working as hard as they could to get it running full time.

The last thing we want is for Cedar Point to be called a Six Flags style park. Six Flags has been notorious with opening rides that have tremendous amounts of downtime; it’s the last thing I want to see happen at Cedar Point. Dragster is Cedar Point’s fault though it is purely the fault of Intamin for engineering the hydraulic launch system incorrectly. Now, Six Flags is going to be saying "We might not have the world's tallest non-operating coaster, but we do have running rides". What has the world come to for this to happen? Have companies become more concerned about building record breakers then building solid engineered rides? What is the future of Cedar Point and Intamin? It’s all up for you to decide.

Well it seems that it’s that time for me to pack for my trip and to end another edition of "Rumors of the Road". I will be out next week, so if you send me an e-mail be aware that I won’t be able to reply to it until after July 5. If you’d like to have something discussed in my articles let me know and if it’s reasonable I’ll try my hardest to get it in. I appreciate all the e-mails that you have sent to me and all of your questions. Thanks again for coming and may God bless every one of you. Please remember that it is not set in stone that Dragster will not be open for the rest of the year.

You can e-mail Sgt. RoadKill at marshall_dude@thepointol.com or if you want leave him a private message on the TPOL Forums.