Showing the kind of concern for safety and details that their carnie forbears definitely did not, Zamperla Amusements, the company behind new Coney Island roller coaster The Thunderbolt, are pushing back the official opening the machine for the third time. We’re sure everything is fine though, and that this has nothing to do with the unintended consequences of the coaster going so fast it violates certain laws of physics.
The coaster, which replaces the old Thunderbolt torn down in the waning days of the Giuliani Administration, was originally set to open May 24, but was pushed back to May 31. This weekend, Brooklyn Views reported the projected opening date was Friday, June 6, but Sheepshead Bites followed that up today with word from Zamperla that the opening date is sometime “next week.” The Thunderbolt is a giant, custom-built coaster with very precise specifications, so we applaud Zamperla in taking their time to make sure that everything’s in tip-top shape before opening it, and there’s probably nothing desperately wrong with the Thunderbolt.
We’re sure there’s absolutely no possibility that the roller coaster winds up going haywire and goes so fast up its 90-degree inclined, 115-foot vertical rise that the cars break free of the tracks and riders are shot clear out of Earth’s atmosphere to orbit the planet in the silence of space. We’re also confident that there’s no way you could wind up being shot around the 100-foot loop so fast that you wind up going back in time to the days when the original Thunderbolt stood, doomed to live history again starting in the 1970s. Or even the 1920s.
Nope, we’re sure that everything is otherwise fine and Zamperla is just making sure they can find a ribbon to their liking for the ribbon cutting ceremony. Definitely, definitely no risk of time travel.