TAMPA — Busch Gardens Tampa Bay finally resolved the mystery behind its next thrill ride Wednesday by unveiling plans for its first launch coaster.
The ride, which opens next spring, will feature acceleration from zero to 60 mph in a few seconds in three separate bursts over a 4,429-foot track. It will also will house a habitat with close-up viewing of the theme park's first collection of cheetahs and a place where the cats can sprint 300 yards after a moving lure pulled on a spool.
The park has made no secret that its next thrill ride, under construction since the spring, is a high-speed coaster. But it has been giving out details in dribs and drabs all summer in a teaser campaign aimed at park regulars, online thrill ride fan blogs and social media. Busch, which unveiled a ride video to its 60,799 friends on Facebook, even gave them a head fake by trademarking the made-up word Cheetaka last winter, then choosing another name — Cheetah Hunt — for the attraction.
Busch switched after deciding the Cheetaka was too hard to say and did not describe the ride theme: a coaster mimicking the movement of a galloping Cheetah chasing down its prey.
Already, however, some fans are pressing Busch switch to Cheetakah, and one started a petition drive on Facebook for a reversal. They objected to use of the word "hunt," which could be misconstrued to mean the Cheetahs are the prey.
"We think the name is self-explanatory, so we're not changing our mind," said Jim Dean, park general manager.
Driven by linear synchronous motors using a series of high-powered magnets, the ride will be the Tampa park's first coaster to run off something other than gravity from a lift hill descent.
Launch coasters have been around since 1998. Some like Kingda Ka in New Jersey hit speeds of 128 mph from a dead stop with a boost coming down a 420-foot lift hill. Others like the Rock n' Roller Coaster at Walt Disney World or the Revenge of the Mummy at Universal Orlando are indoors. The thrills come as much from g-forces and sudden, unexpected acceleration as a coaster's usual sense of temporary weightlessness that aficionados call "air time."
Cheetah Hunt will follow a long, low and curving path after an initial figure eight followed by a 130-foot descent into a trench. The 16-seat trains will then simulate a bounding cheetah running close to ground level on a track of overbanked curves. It features an twisting inversion before making its final run into what was built as the park's monorail station. While the monorail is long gone, the cable car Sky Ride hosue in the same building will be re-opened next spring when construction is done.
The cheetah habitat, which will be called Cheetah Run, will offer nose-to-nose viewing of the spotted cats through heavy-duty plexiglass. Busch hopes to train the animals to demonstrate their high-speed sprinting capability several times a day.
Busch is acquiring eight cheetahs from the collection of 250 in U.S. zoos and captive breeding programs. The first two arrived recently from the White Oak Conservation Preserve near Jacksonville. Cheetahs run out of gas after only a couple of their 300 yard sprints. But Busch officials say coaxing them to run regularly is good exercise that nurtures their mental health.
"With eight cheetahs, we should be able to get six runs a day," said Mike Boos, vice president of zoological operations.
Rising between the demolished Rhino rally waterfall and the former Clydesdale exhibit, the ride is being built by Intamin AG, a Swiss ride designer that also created Busch Gardens Scorpion. In 2007 Intamin launched Furius Baco, a similar high-speed-launch catapult coaster in Spain with no lift hill that accelerates from zero to 84 mph in 3.5 seconds.
Cheetah Hunt will be a 3 1/2 minute experience with a 48 inch height restriction.