Racer 75 is a wooden

racing roller coaster A dual-tracked roller coaster is a roller coaster that consists of two tracks. They can be configured as racing, dueling, or Möbius loop roller coasters. Some dual-track coasters operate only one track side at a time, including Rolling Thunde ...

Kings Dominion Kings Dominion is an amusement park in Doswell, Virginia, United States, north of Richmond, Virginia, Richmond and south of Washington, D.C. Owned and operated by Six Flags, the park opened to the public on May 3, 1975, featuring over 60 rid ...

Doswell, Virginia Doswell is an unincorporated community in Hanover County in the Central Region of the U.S. state of Virginia. Originally called Hanover Junction, it was located on the Virginia Central Railroad (later, part of the C&O) at a crossing of the ...

. Designed by John C. Allen, the ride opened with the park in 1975 as Rebel Yell. It features a similar track layout to The Racer (1972) at

Kings Island Kings Island is a amusement park northeast of Cincinnati in Mason, Ohio, United States. Owned and operated by Six Flags, the park was built by Taft Broadcasting and opened in 1972. It was part of a larger effort to move and expand Coney Islan ...

and the now-defunct Thunder Road at

Carowinds Carowinds is a amusement park primarily located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The park is owned and operated by Six Flags. Carowinds straddles the state line between North and South Carolina, adjacent to Interstate 77, with a portion of the park ...

(1976). In 2018, Rebel Yell was renamed Racer 75 to avoid any connection to the Confederacy, to reflect its racing coaster design and opening date, and as a subtle nod to the

American Coaster Enthusiasts American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) is a non-profit organization focusing on the enjoyment, knowledge, and preservation of roller coasters as well as recognition of some as architectural and engineering landmarks. Dues-paying members receive th ...

(ACE) organization that was founded in 1978.

History

Racer 75 opened as Rebel Yell with

's grand opening in 1975. Jim Copp, Kings Dominion’s first vice president of finance and administration, named the coaster after

Rebel Yell The rebel yell was a battle cry used by Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. Confederate soldiers used the yell when charging to intimidate the enemy and boost their own morale, although the yell had many other uses. There ar ...

, a brand of bourbon. In 1992, the trains on one side were changed to face and run backwards, which was a similar change made to Kings Island's The Racer a decade earlier in 1982. Locals would call this reversed version of the ride the “Yell Rebel”. Both were restored to their original configurations in 2008, not long after Cedar Fair purchased the chain of parks from Paramount. For the park's 40th anniversary in 2014, the trains were repainted red and blue to represent their original color scheme, and chasing lights were added back to the water park side of the track. The Rebel Yell name was dropped in 2018 when the coaster was renamed Racer 75. The new name was labeled an amalgam that mixes references to the coaster's racing configuration, the year it opened, and the ACE acronym for American Coaster Enthusiasts – a club organization that traces its founding back to a 1977 riding event at the park involving Rebel Yell. While the park didn't acknowledge the reason, some speculate the name change coincided with discussions within the state legislature surrounding the removal of Confederate statuary icons throughout Virginia; “

” was also the name of a

Confederate A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

battle cry.

Design

Racer 75 features a

layout with two individual tracks that are mirror images of one another. Its design was inspired by the Racer at sister park

, which opened three years earlier in 1972. The primary difference between the two is that the tracks on the original Racer split at the fourth hill on the outbound journey, whereas the tracks on Racer 75 do not split until the trains begin the turnaround. Racer 75's design was also utilized in the construction of defunct Thunder Road at

in 1976, which featured the greatest height and speed of the three until its permanent closure in 2015. The tracks ran parallel to Lake Charles, a large man-made lake on the northwest corner of Kings Dominion. Two-thirds of the lake was drained in the early 1990s during construction of

Anaconda Anacondas or water boas are a group of large boas of the genus ''Eunectes''. They are a semiaquatic group of snakes found in tropical South America. Three to five extant and one extinct species are currently recognized, including one of the l ...

. There is one red and one blue train on each side, for a total of two trains on each side. When only running one train on each side, an effort is made to run a train of each color. Racer 75 received the Coaster Landmark award from ACE on June 20, 2003.ACE Coaster Landmark Awards
/ref>

References

External links

Official ''Racer 75'' page
{{ACE Coaster Landmarks Roller coasters in Virginia Roller coasters introduced in 1975 Roller coasters operated by Six Flags

History

Design

See also

References

External links