Speed – The Ride is a

roller coaster A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides are o ...

in storage at Akita Plaza on the

Las Vegas Strip The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about long, and is immediately south of ...

in Nevada. Originally located at the Sahara Hotel and Casino, it opened to the public on April 28, 2000, and closed on May 1, 2011.

History

NASCAR Café (2000–2012)

Speed – The Ride was constructed during the Sahara Hotel and Casino's 1999 remodeling, as part of the

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and hi ...

Café addition. Original plans called for an

indoor roller coaster An indoor roller coaster or enclosed roller coaster is a roller coaster built inside a structure. The structure may be unrelated to the ride, or it may be intended solely or primarily for the ride. Many indoor coasters are custom made and placed ...

with a maximum height of , but the layout was later modified. The ride was designed and manufactured by Premier Rides and fabricated by Intermountain Lift, Inc. The Sahara casino closed on May 16, 2011. The outdated resort had been suffering from decline and lack of upkeep in prior years. Speed – The Ride ceased operation prior to the hotel's closure on May 1, 2011. Dismantling of the coaster began in April 2012.

Akita Plaza

According to the contractor dismantling the ride, Speed will be reinstalled at Akita Plaza, a small shopping center across the

street A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...

from Mandalay Bay, which also plans to add new restaurants and a concert venue. The Akita Plaza development later stalled, and Speed – The Ride remained dismantled and in storage at the site. By 2019, a portion of the ride was recycled for scrap.

Ride experience

The ride began with a launch from the inside of the NASCAR Café, accelerating from in two seconds. The train dropped into an underground tunnel in front of the resort and then passed through a vertical loop. Afterwards, a second launch accelerated the train from in two seconds. After a quick snaking turn, the train traveled up a 224-ft (68m) tower before falling and traversing the entire course backwards. On the return trip, the second launch area decelerated the train from before traveling back through the vertical loop and the underground tunnel. The train then reached the final brake run and returned to the station.

References

External links