Knott’s Gets the Drop on Its Customers With New Coaster

First, each of the roller coaster cars--a red one and a yellow--climbs 70 feet on side-by-side steel tracks.

Together, they plunge--and then the race begins.

Knott’s Berry Farm on Wednesday unveiled its $9-million roller coaster, Windjammer, leaving riders to debate whether the red or yellow track was faster. Windjammer, one of the park’s most expensive attractions ever, is part of the park’s new beach-themed area called the Boardwalk.

The park’s fourth steel roller coaster opened less than two weeks after the mega-hyped new attraction at Six Flags Magic Mountain, Superman the Escape, in Valencia. The Superman roller coaster is the world’s tallest and fastest--it drops riders backward 370 feet at 100 mph.

Windjammer isn’t trying to compete with the Southland’s 800-pound gorilla roller coasters, Knott’s officials said. Instead, the roller coaster--which reaches a top speed of 42 mph--offers plenty of dives, loops and spirals, and special wind and fog effects in a beach setting, with a lagoon and palm trees.

“Typically, if you’re a roller coaster buff, you want a ride that’s the highest and biggest--this has a little more sophistication,” said Robin Hall, Knott’s vice president of design and architecture. “There are a lot of waves and turns--we wanted to get a surfing feel.”

Windjammer is one of two dual-tracked roller coasters in Southern California. The other one is the wooden Colossus at Magic Mountain.

Even Knott’s employees could not say which of the Windjammer tracks is faster. Some say the speed of the cars depends on the combined weight of the riders--the lighter the car, the faster it goes. Others speculate that the heavier cars go faster because they build more inertia.

Only Hall knows the answer.

“We don’t want to tell you,” he joked.

Among Windjammer’s first riders was Marion Knott, daughter of park founder Walter Knott. Marion Knott, who is in her 70s, said she screamed the whole time.

“Next time,” she said, “I’m going to keep my eyes open.”

Rider Stephanie Draeger, 18, said she never caught her breath after the first plunge.

“That drop,” gasped Draeger, a Huntington Beach High School senior. “It comes from nowhere. . . . All of a sudden, you’re out of your seat.”

“It’s exhilarating,” said her classmate, Lori Daedelow. “You want to win your race” against the other track.