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The star of the Old Chicago Fairgrounds was the Chicago Loop. 



Arrow Dynamics designed the Chicago Loop.  It was the second modern looping coaster in the world opening a few weeks after Corkscrew at Knott's Berry Farm.  Both Corkscrew and the Chicago Loop were the same design "Corkscrew" model which Arrow went on to build fourteen of between 1975 and 1982.



Arrow Corkscrews had a pretty simple layout.  You leave the station, turn 180 degrees go up a lift, turn 180 degrees, drop, turn 180 degrees into a pair of corkscrew loops before another 180 degree turn back into the brake run and station. 



The Chicago Loop had a drop of seventy feet and top speed around fifty miles an hour.  Looking at it today the Chicago Loop doesn't look like much now, but during it's existence at Old Chicago from 1975 to 1980 a coaster with loops really blew people away.



When Old Chicago opened in 1975 it had been half a century or more since most people had seen a coaster turn riders upside down.  People would stand under the Chicago Loop's corkscrew and stare up in amazement as a trainload of people looked down upon them from the speeding train.



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Paul B. Drabek