The Fans Just Keep Coasting Along for the Thrill of It All : Recreation: Roller coasters have proved durable attractions at amusement parks. And Southland parks have plenty to offer the daring.

Well, the Russians got there first--up to a summit and back down again.

To amuse themselves during the winter, daring Russians in the 15th and 16th centuries sledded down hills on wooden ice slides. “Russian Mountains” these slides were called, and they were the ancestor of all the world’s roller coasters.

Roller-coaster riders today can loop-the-loop, corkscrew and drop 188 feet in less than three minutes at 70 m.p.h. And in Southern California, riders can board some of the biggest and best of these awesome coasters. But be warned: These “incredible scream machines” are not for the faint of heart or stomach.

This spring, Six Flag’s Magic Mountain in Valencia unveiled the Viper--”the tallest, fastest looping steel roller coaster in the world”--and its three vertical loops, one corkscrew and one boomerang turn.

With five other coasters, Magic Mountain has become a showcase for the “king of the rides business” in all its permutations. The amusement park is “striving to be the coaster capital of the U.S., and to introduce the best coasters in the marketplace,” said spokeswoman Courtney Simmons. “We constantly poll the audience here and they always say the reason they come out here is for the coasters.”

Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park has opened a brand new state-of-the-art coaster called Boomerang that--in less than a minute--rolls three times forward and three times backward and upside-down along loops, corkscrews and two 11-story towers.

Boomerang, according to Knott’s publicist Robert Deuel, had its genesis on the bones of the old Corkscrew roller coaster built in 1975.

“The Corkscrew had outlived its level of technology, though it was a prototype for the whole genre of looping steel coasters and the first in the U.S. to do two 360-degree loops,” Deuel said. “We wanted to replace Corkscrew with a higher level of thrills.”

But these three-minute wonders had humble and slow beginnings.

From “Russian Mountains,” the idea of a movable car on tracks went through several mutations. Near the turn of the 19th Century, the world’s first roller coaster opened in Paris.

In 1884, Sunday school teacher LaMarcus A. Thompson stunned Brooklyn’s Coney Island when his “Thompson’s Switchback Gravity Pleasure Railway,” America’s first commercial roller coaster, opened. The coaster had 450 feet of track, 10 cars and a top speed of 6 m.p.h.

Many early roller coasters billed themselves as “scenic railways” with passengers sitting sideways to enjoy the view.

By 1900, what we recognize today as the modern roller coaster was in full tilt and roaring about on tracks in Europe and the United States. The world’s first two stand-up coasters were installed in Japan in 1980.

The first roller coasters in Southern California were erected on piers up and down the coast. In 1910, one of the best--also called a “scenic railway”--was developed by Thompson at Venice Beach.

California’s other famous roller coasters have included the Hi-Miler coaster at Del Mar Fair, the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, the Playland amusement park coaster in San Francisco, and the Cyclone Racer at The Pike amusement center in downtown Long Beach.

Nationwide, thrill seekers throughout the years have ridden such historic coasters as the Wildcat in Bristol, Conn.; the steel coaster at Sea Breeze Park in Rochester, N.Y.; The Thunderbolt n Pittsburgh; the Silver Flash in Chicago; The Great American Scream Machine near Atlanta; the Loch Ness Monster in Williamsburg, Va.; the Judge Roy Scream at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington; the Texas Cyclone at Astroworld in Houston, and the Montana Rusa (“Russian Mountain”) in Chapultepec Park in Mexico City.

When it comes to roller coasters, gravity is crucial, because gravity is what keeps the roller coaster on track.

Here’s a quick physics lesson: There are two types of gravity forces: positive Gs (the kind that keep you in your seat) and negative Gs (the kind that pull you out of your seat on the downhill ride). The combination of these G-forces is the heart of the thrill and makes you scream like a banshee during that first loooooong drop down the tracks.

Corkscrew rides, for example, start out conventionally by tugging the car to the top of the lift and letting gravity take it from there over the plunges and climbs of the track. The car can hit 43 m.p.h. at the bottom of the first plunge, then the track flings the car through a corkscrew that turns riders upside-down--not once, but twice.

On the issue of wood versus steel roller coasters, there are purists who insist that wooden elevated rides are still the best. They stress that the creaking and moaning of the wood, and the smell of grease all add to the ride’s uniqueness. On the other hand, steel coasters allow for stomach-dropping acrobatics because they can be twisted into corkscrews, pretzel turns and loops.

Allen Ambrosini, publisher and editor of “At the Park,” a magazine for the amusement-park trade, explained the difference between the two types of roller coasters in terms of the rides they give.

“Steel coasters run out of steam faster; they loose their oomph at the end. Wooden coasters just keep on going,” Ambrosini said. “Put it this way: A steel coaster can be compared to the Concorde and a wooden coaster is like a biplane. Both get you there, but in very different ways.”

But thrill rides often carry some risk, and although roller coasters have been touted by enthusiasts as “safer than marry-go-rounds,” injuries and deaths have occurred. Among them:

* In 1978, seven riders were injured on Disneyland’s Space Mountain ride after two cars collided. That same year, a 20-year-old woman fell to her death from Magic Mountain’s Colossus, and six people were injured after the braking system on the park’s Great American Revolution roller coaster apparently malfunctioned. Also, a 24-year-old woman died after falling from the car and being dragged on the Cyclone at The Pike amusement center in Long Beach.

* In 1979 in West Point, Pa., 12 children were injured when an attendant at West Point Amusement Park mistakenly released the brake and the car left the track.

* In 1980, two young women were injured after being thrown from the High-Miler roller coaster running out of control at California State Fair in Sacramento. Also that year in Denver, five people suffered minor injuries when two coaster trains at Elitch Gardens amusement park collided. At Marriott’s Great American amusement park in Santa Clara, a 13-year-old boy died and eight people were injured after an equipment malfunction caused two trains to collide.

* In 1982 in Del Mar, two men were injured when the wheels of a Carnival Show Times car came loose and halted the ride.

* In 1984 in Hamburg, West Germany, a man was killed and 13 people injured after a coaster car jumped the track, while in Eureka, Mo., a woman died of multiple injuries after being flung from the stand-up Rail Blazer coaster at Six Flags Over Mid-America.

* In 1896 in Edmonton, Canada, three women were flung to their deaths after their car derailed on the $6-million Mindbender roller coaster.

* In 1987 in Jackson, N.J., a woman died after a 75-foot fall from the Lightnin’ Loops coaster at Six Flags-Great Adventure amusement park.

Though roller coasters proliferated across the national landscape during the early part of the century, their number dropped from a high of 2,000 in the 1920s to a low of 147 in 1978.

Many of the coasters closed during the Depression; others were razed to make room for suburban housing.

But the ride’s attraction, however, has never changed: “You feel like you’re Superman. You lose all touch with the ground. You lose touch with the world,” said Ambrosini in a 1980 interview.

“Roller coasters provide one of the few sensations held in common for several generations in this country,” Cleveland librarian Russell Hehr told The Times’ Charles Hillinger in 1978.

“We have the same sensations on roller coasters that our granddaddies did at the turn of the century--that same feeling of safe insecurity that begins when the cars start clanking slowly up that first hill with impending doom lying ahead.”

A renaissance of sorts is occurring among roller coasters. Nationwide, they now number more than 200, with more in the offing.

Paul L. Ruben, editor of Roller Coaster! Magazine and a director of the American Coaster Enthusiasts (which lists more than 3,000 members), attributes the return of roller coasters to the increasing number of people attending amusement parks.

“Last year, in seven parks that added new roller coasters, their attendance rose by 8.5%, though attendance in amusement parks in general rose 1.5%,” he said.

“Amusement parks frequently ask their visitors what they like to see and invariably it’s roller coasters. A roller coaster defines an amusement park and is good for business; it’s an amusement you can’t find anywhere else. They offer larger-than-life thrills. Not all of us can sky dive or be a race car driver.”

More importantly, roller coasters pay for themselves. “Even the Viper (at Magic Mountain), which cost $7 million, will pay for itself in two years,” Ruben said.

Beside the new Viper, Magic Mountain has a veritable plethora of coasters. There’s the Great American Revolution, which opened in 1976, and Colossus, which opened in 1978 and is the only wooden roller coaster with two drops of more than 100 feet, a statistic which garnered a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Magic Mountain also has the Gold Rusher (a mine-car roller coaster), the Ninja (the only suspended roller coaster on the West Coast) and the Wily E. Coyote for little kids. Official roller coaster status for “Freefall,” which is on tracks and does relies on gravity for speed, is debatable among coaster enthusiasts.

Knott’s Berry Farm also features Montezooma’s Revenge which opened in 1978 and hits 0-55 m.p.h. in less than five seconds during a 38-second ride.

Disneyland has the distinction of having the world’s first steel roller coaster, the good ol’ Matterhorn which opened in 1959. All those Vipers, Corkscrews and other rides trace their ancestry to the venerable Matterhorn.

Disneyland also offers the eerie thrills of Space Mountain, which open in 1977 and is one of the first roller-coaster trips to take place in almost total darkness. Disneyland’s most recent coaster, the Big Thunder Mountain Mine Train near Frontierland, opened in 1979.

And last but not least is the heart-warming tale of the dead coaster that rolled back to life.

At Belmont Park in the Mission Beach area of San Diego, a great old wooden roller coaster called the Giant Dipper (and later the Belmont Earthquake) was built in 1925.

Belmont Park closed in 1976 for a total revamp which did not include the roller coaster. But roller coaster lovers, many of them members of American Coaster Enthusiasts, persuaded the City of San Diego to spare the ride and honor the coaster’s distinction as a national historic landmark.

So this Fourth of July weekend, the Giant Dipper--dedicated to all riders willing to take the plunge--will roll once again.