Negative-G - Worlds Of Fun - ACE Around the World 2026

Worlds of Fun
Kansas City, Missouri
ACE Around the World
May 23 2026
Page Four

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ACE Around the World at Worlds of Fun, Kansas City, Missouri

In the 1990's Timber Wolf ran amazing and was ranked as one of the best wooden coasters in the world. Unfortunately age and Cedar Fair's less than stellar wood coaster maintenance started to take their toll on the ride. Timber Wolf became known for its "intense ride jostling" that a sign in the station warned about. After decades of being a "one and done" coaster when visiting Worlds of Fun Great Coasters International was contracted to do a multi year rehab of the ride to restore this ride not just to the glory of the good ole days but to make it better than before. GCI reworked most of the track and removed the rough and boring double upward helix. Timber Wolf was suddenly not a ride you only could stand riding once. Worlds of Fun's other wooden coasters suddenly had some more competition for which was the best in the park. Then there was 2025.

In 2025 all of a sudden Timber Wolf was removed from the parks map and the entrance had a huge wooden fence constructed in front of it closing off the ride from view. Was it going to be demolished? Was it going to be turned into a hybrid coaster? No one knew.

Then as Haunt began all of a sudden Worlds of Fun announced that guests could get one last ride on Timber Wolf. Was it the last ride for 2025? Was it the last ride forever? No one knew.

Flash forward to January of 2026 when trade mark filings came out for various parks like "Enchanted Parks St. Louis" and "Enchanted Parks Oceans of Fun" and it started to dawn on everyone that maybe these parks were on the chopping block due to Six Flags tenuous financial position.

As we all found out in the spring oof 2026 that Worlds of Fun was to be sold along with several other parks including Six Flags St. Louis to a company called EPR Properties who then leased out the operations to Enchanted Parks for forty years. My guess is Timber Wolf was saved from the demolition crew because EPR and Enchanted Parks weren't going to purchase a park with a non-functional coaster. If the parks sold EPR would have gotten the operational coaster that they wanted and if the sale fell through well guests would have gotten their final ride and Timber Wolf would have been either rotting or razed for 2026.

Even though Worlds of Fun did get Timber Wolf up and running late last year, Six Flags, knowing Worlds of Fun was due to be sold, massively cut budgets over the off season for and as a result Timber Wolf was not ready to open with Worlds of Fun. What's interesting is instead of contracting with Great Coasters, who spent four years rehabbing this coaster, Worlds of Fun went with Gravity Group to do what was needed to get Timber Wolf ready for 2026 which included replacing track. The reason for the change in companies is probably to do with who could get the work done quickest as Enchanted Parks took over only three weeks before opening day.

With Dinn, Great Coasters International, and Great Coasters having all worked on Timber Wolf one could easily say that this is truly a "Franken-Coaster".

Even though Timber Wolf was testing the big question was still would it open for us? Don't worry I won't leave you hanging for too long.

Mamba was testing and that was our next stop on our behind the scenes tour.

For those who don't know Mamba is a hyper-coaster built by Morgan Manufacturing and was added to Worlds of Fun back in 1998.

Sitting on the highest point of Worlds of Fun, which is on one of the highest points in the Kansas City area you can see Mamba from miles around. You know you're in Kansas City when Mamba is somewhere on the horizon.