Go behind the thrills of Busch Gardens roller coasters
TAMPA, Fla. - Thrill seekers looking for their next adrenaline-soaked adventure can always find heart-stopping drops, dips and whirls on the roller coasters at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.
But, do you know how those rides work and what makes them both thrilling and safe at the same time?
Ride maintenance supervisor Javier Francisco explained it this way, "We basically take every one of our trains and we pull them down to the nuts and bolts…the bare minimum."
The trains are taken one at a time to the maintenance hangar for the inspection, disassembly and reassembly process.
"We inspect and put them back together nut and bolt, one piece at a time," he said.
That makes for an extremely safe, but heart-pounding ride.
Busch Gardens roller coaster trains are taken one at a time to the maintenance hangar for the inspection, disassembly and reassembly process.
In a behind-the-scenes tour of the drop coaster, Danica Erickson, park operations supervisor of SheiKra, did some "show-and-tell."
"These are called your 'anti-rollbacks,' that's what makes that click-clacking sound when you're going up the lift," she explained while showing large metal teeth protruding from the undercarriage of the ride. "That's going to prevent the coaster from falling backward."
Erickson moved on to other key parts of the ride to show its "forward" motion.
"We have three chain dogs on the train, these chain dogs are what engages into the lift chain and that's actually what pulls you all the way up to the top," she explained.
Then she showed one special part.
The ‘drop dog’ is an exclusive part of all dive machine coasters. It gets pushed up once you are over the drop and it’s the only thing holding you up over the drop.
"This is the drop dog right here, this is an exclusive part of all dive machine coasters. That little thing right here gets pushed up once you're over the drop and that's the only thing holding you up over the drop."
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All of those gadgets and gears make for the fun roller coaster ride experience that visitors are looking for at Busch Gardens.
But gadgets and gears aren't the only things that make these thrill rides work.
"Lots of magnets!" exclaimed Francisco when talking about Cheetah Hunt.
A Cheetah Hunt rollercoaster train undergoes a refurb at Busch Gardens.
Cheetah Hunt is a linear synchronous motor coaster. That means it runs on those magnets.
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"This is an LSM roller coaster," stated Francisco. "It utilizes eddy current magnets to launch this coaster through its circuit."
That's an oversimplified way of explaining the propulsion via electromagnets that makes Cheetah Hunt accelerate from the beginning to the very end of the track.
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay offers different behind-the-scenes tours for different parts of the park throughout the year.
LINK: Click here to learn more about Busch Gardens.