It's a long drive from Vegas to Phoenix, Arizona and I did it all in one fell swoop. The start of Memorial Day weekend was quickly approaching and I wanted to be in the middle of the desert before the traffic threatened our intense schedule. After getting somewhat sidetracked by new construction outside of The Strip, it was a non-stop journey to Castles and Coasters where I met up with Grant Groathouse, who has been an avid coaster nut for many years. Grant is visiting a number of parks this year including Six Flags Astroworld, Worlds of Fun and Cedar Point--sort of on a little coaster tour of his own there.
This park, located near Metrocenter, has two rollercoasters, a flume ride, go-cart track, arcade and bumper boats, along with a host of Chance rides. The star coaster here is the Desert Storm, an O.D. Hopkins creation that towers high above highway 17.
With a green and white color scheme, this coaster features two inversions and 2,000 feet of track that winds around and over the other attractions. With distinctive green and yellow cars, the ride roared around us as we climbed up to the station. I hopped into the back seat and we took off, up the lift and down around to the left into that first drop. Soaring down and up into the first loop, which is structured in such a way that you exit out of the bottom slightly higher than the point at which you entered, providing more speed as we crested a gradual rise that curved left and sent us reeling into the second inversion, buzzing the station and taking off into a wild spiral over the flume ride.
And on this 96-degree Phoenix day, the hot buffeting winds of the desert were blasting our faces and causing the tears to form up in the corners of our eyes. After two revoloutions, the train pulled into the station and it was time to get some shots of this uniquely designed coaster. A bridge located underneath the first inversion made it easy to capture the sharp angles and twisted layout of this coaster, one of only two operating in the state of Arizona. After talking a bit with our escort about some of the newest rollercoasters opening this year, we moved on to check out the second coaster; a family-style steel Patriot.
An unusual drive-wheel lift powers the train to the top of a tightly wound structure and affords a nice view of Metrocenter before diving down to the right and underneath the lift. Then, a swooping curve to the left, and it's here that you really feel some kick in this kiddie coaster, rushing around around a tightly packed right turn before zipping into the station for a second go-round. They sure don't make kiddie coasters as innocent as they used to.
While doing our shoot on the Patriot, we ran into Katie Stone and Lauren White, two locals who rode in the front seat of the train and helped our public relations image by posing for this picture. We were out of t-shirts and hats, but gave the two some Orbitz stickers for helping us out, and this seemed to please them almost as much as the notion of being on the internet. After saying so-long to our delighted new friends, we headed over to the local Chevy's and had some much-needed water before hooking up with Greg Chin, an animator whose credits include Anastasia and The Little Mermaid. Our original plans called for a long journey on into Texas where we'd take a breather and wait for the opening of the Six Flags Over Texas thriller Mr. Freeze. However, the steel LIM beastie had other plans, which caused us to change ours. So, hopping a plane with ideas of seeing "The Lost World" upon arriving in town, we skipped ahead to the Florida portion of our tour and prepared for some high-tech classic magic.