Riding a Speeding Bullet

Tests of manhood come in many forms. This one involved a contraption billed as the world’s fastest roller coaster: a linear accelerator that would sling me down a steel rail at 100 mph, shoot me through a body-crunching curve at 4.5 Gs and propel me straight up into the sky until I finally slowed to a point of complete weightlessness at the height of a 40-story building.

Then, of course, I would do it all in reverse: dropping 40 floors flat on my back, rocketing blindly through the same curve at roughly the same break-neck speed, and eventually, at some blessed moment, climbing out to safety.

Oh, and naturally there would be people around to see all this.

“I’m not really scared--I think it’s going to be exciting,” said one of the teenagers riding with me, Erwin Alonzo, a 6-foot-4, 19-year-old coaster buff who seemed wholly unfazed by the noises of the accelerator going off: deep, whirring whuuuumps that sounded for all the world like the discharging of 2 million volts.

Erwin and three friends--Diana Limon, Jose Molina and Freddie Torres--were joining me for a last-minute test run of Superman the Escape at Six Flags Magic Mountain. They were a carefree bunch: Diana giggling, flashing her blue eyes; Jose slouching in oversized baggy shorts; Freddie laughing, doing push-ups on the parallel bars that serve to divide the passenger lines, tossing out flip comments like “I just want to go. . . . I want to feel the rush.”

The rush was not all that important to me. At 40, I was far more concerned with practical matters: How to get through this predicament without some catastrophic loss of pride, or worse. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that I might pass out, or throw up, or even die of a coronary--negative thoughts, I admit, but proud park employees kept dispensing a wealth of intimidating data: 0 to 100 in seven seconds . . . 2,000-horsepower thrust . . . twice the height of Niagara Falls.

Each open-air, steel-wheeled car can hold 15 passengers. Diana, Jose and I were ushered into the front row. They were laughing, cutting up. I flashed a few smiles, upholding my dignity, and took a series of deep breaths, a relaxation technique I’ve perfected through innumerable dental procedures. Tilting into the requisite head-back position, I prepared myself to experience the root canal of all theme-park adventures.

Jose was just realizing that there are no seat belts, no safety harnesses--just short, padded bars that pull forward and lock over the thighs.

“That’s it?” he said, with some alarm. He crossed his arms at the wrists and closed his eyes a moment. Praying, it looked like. The whole car grew silent--the teens and several park employees riding with us.

Then it went.

The acceleration produced two immediate physical effects. The first was visceral--an ungodly proliferation of butterflies, concentrating first in my gut and speeding rapidly down into my bladder. Thankfully, I had emptied it before boarding so I could ignore that sensation and think about what was happening to my face.

The G-forces and adrenaline combined to produce a true anomaly of physics: turning my cheeks and mouth into some kind of latex. Old newsreel footage flashed through my mind: astronauts in training, their faces grotesquely twisted in madly whirling centrifuges. That was me, rubbery lips flapping open, my palate drying out like a salt flat in the Mojave.

The car shot out of a short round tunnel--it looks like a corrugated rain spout--and blasted down 600 feet of track, accelerating all the way. There were screams in my ears--whose, I couldn’t tell, didn’t care. I kept mute, the terror bottled up, staring straight ahead and trying to adjust to the speed. For a moment, I thought that was possible.

Then we hit the curve.

Downward forces pressed on my shoulders, jammed me into the seat. We pointed to the sky and kept going. Up, up, more slowly up, topping out at 370 feet, weightless. “An unprecedented 6.5 seconds of weightlessness,” according to the press release. That may be; all I know is, my back lifted slightly off the backrest, the sky was a glorious blue, and suddenly I was plunging back downward, like a man on a wood pallet falling down a mine shaft.

The curve caught us and the vibration rattled me around like a marble in a tin box. The thing leveled out and slowed with a whoosh and it was over.

Diana was giggling again. Erwin and Freddie raved about the takeoff, the pure speed. Jose let out a satisfied sigh.

“Ah, I loved it.”

I came through, I guess. I can still look myself in the mirror. Tomorrow, however, I ride nothing more perilous than the elevator.

BE THERE

Superman the Escape. Opens Saturday at Six Flags Magic Mountain, Interstate 5 at Magic Mountain Parkway, Valencia. Hours: Saturdays, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sundays 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Admission: Adults, $34; children under 48 inches, $17. Information: (818) 367-5965 or (805) 255-4111.

* WHAT TOOK SO LONG? The issue wasn’t safety, officials say, but rather, how to get Superman up to speed. Page 47.