Negative-G - Six Flags Fiesta Texas Á Fiesta Fest 2016

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Iron Rattler Rollercoaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, San Antonio, Texas

Iron Rattler began as just The Rattler in 1992 along with the rest of the park. In order to create a buzz about the park Gaylord decided to have the worlds tallest and fastest wooden coaster as the thrilling centerpiece of Fiesta Texas. John Pierce was contracted to design the massive coaster and the Roller Coaster Corporation of America signed on to build it above, down and through the quarry walls.

There were a lot of problems with The Rattler and a lot of that seems to stem with the management at Gaylord. During the design process they kept wanting a taller and taller ride changing the specs time and again. Instead of saying this is what we want and letting John Pierce design from there he ended up having to do modification after modification resulting in what I have heard of being a really uneven design.

With management needing that world record wow factor The Rattler opened with a hundred and sixty-six foot drop with a top speed of seventy-three miles per hour as it dove over the cliff side. From there it climbed back on top of the rock walls, dove back down into the quarry, up over the walls again before entering a weird triple helix that really killed the rides intensity before slowly diving once again into the quarry before finishing up going through a tunnel cut into the rock wall.

The Rattler opened with a rough reputation. Jackhammering, shuffling and in general roughness made the ride miserable and soon began a long process of tweaking the design here and there in hopes of fixing the problem.

Two years after opening the bottom of the first drop was raised forty-two feet up slowing The Rattler's top speed from seventy-three down to sixty-five miles per hour in hopes the reduced speed would make it a smoother one.