Dollywood's latest ride to be announced Friday
Aug. 06, 2015 @ 06:35 PM
JAKE OLD
PIGEON FORGE —
Dolly Parton and Dollywood officials will announce the theme park's newest ride Friday during a special event.
Slated for the Jukebox Junction area, the ride will be a wooden roller coaster themed around 1950s and 1960s hot rod cars. It is set to open in March 2016.
It marks the largest investment into a single attraction in the history of the park, likely costing more than $21 million, Dollywood's Public Relations Director Pete Owens said.
The ride will use urethane wheels on a steel railing. It will be the first wooden coaster in the world to use launch technology, Owens said.
Previously, the power demand to launch a wooden coaster was too great for launch technolgy to be feasible, but the energy costs associated with this ride are much lower.
Brian Dudash, vice president over maintenance and construction at Dollywood, emphasized that the roller coaster will be a smooth ride.
"When you think of a wood coaster, you might think of it being a rough ride, but it's the latest version of a wood coaster," Dudash said. "It's not a traditional wood coaster."
Owens said he believes the new attraction will get attention worldwide.
"My belief is, this ride is going to be among the one or two most anticipated rides in our industry," he said. "I think people will look at this ride and be very interested to see how it turns out, what the ride experience is, and we believe it will be a very unique, very thrilling experience."
The company constructing the project, Rocky Mountain Construction, is a new partner with Dollywood. One of the engineers working on the project designed the Tennessee Tornado ride at Dollywood while working at another company.
This project has been in the works for more than a year. Construction takes about nine months, and there was a lengthy process of determining the attraction's specifics.
Choosing a new attraction and its theme is a complicated process, both Dudash and Owens said.
"It's more complex than the political process," Dudash joked.
"We know the traffic flow of our guests, and we have a good idea of what is popular in the park," Owens said. "So that allows us an opportunity to go after things our guests are interested in, and try to find innovative products and unique experiences."
Officials at the company also had input, including Parton.
The name of the ride has not been revealed. It is expected to be announced Friday.
The ride is the latest component of the $300 park investment announced by Parton in 2013. Previous parts of the investment were the FireChaser Express roller coaster, which opened in 2014, and the DreamMore Resort, which opened last month.
jold@themountainpress.com
