Wooden Roller Coaster - Revival

Revival

Wooden roller coasters slowly became larger over the course of time. By the end of the 1970s, Kings Island came back to the scene with The Beast, which currently holds the record for the longest wooden roller coaster in the United States (The Beast was also the longest roller coaster in the world overall until 1991, when The Ultimate at Lightwater Valley opened). Judge Roy Scream, a wooden roller coaster with a 71-foot-tall (22 m) drop, opened at Six Flags Over Texas in 1980, Grizzly, a wooden roller coaster patterned after the Cincinnati Coney Island Wildcat, opened in 1982 at Kings Dominion, and Raging Wolf Bobs (inspired by The Riverview Park Bobs) opened at Geauga Lake in 1988.

The 1980s would continue with The Beast leading the way for many new wooden coaster designs. In the 1990s, the popularity of large wooden twister roller coasters would come to the scene. With rides built by the Dinn Corporation such as Mean Streak at Cedar Point and Texas Giant at Six Flags over Texas, wooden coasters seemed to be getting bigger and bigger.

The popularity of traditional out-and-back designs also became popular throughout the 1990s, except they could be made bigger and better with new technology. Custom Coasters International (CCI) was responsible for creating a large number of out-and-back and twisting coasters, such as Shivering Timbers at Michigan's Adventure, GhostRider at Knott's Berry Farm, The Raven at Holiday World, and its sister coaster, The Legend. A company named Great Coasters International (GCI) came upon the scene in 1996 with Wildcat at Hersheypark and continued to create twisted track designs into the new millennium.