KI 45: The Racer

posted by Don Helbig on April 25, 2017

"It rides like a baby coach.”

That was the opinion of the renowned late John Allen of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, who’s “baby” was the Racer roller coaster at Kings Island.

The Racer – really its twin racers – has been the focal point of the Coney Mall sector of the park for the past 45 years, and with good reason. The Racer is credited for re-igniting the roller coaster building boom in the early 1970’s, thus beginning the second golden age of the roller coaster. More than 103 million guests have taken a ride on the Racer since it opened April 29, 1972 – the most in park history. Its record year was 1976, when a park record 3,681,338 rides were given.

In addition to being considered an important part of the roller coaster renaissance of the 1970’s, the Racer was the site of several world-record riding attempts and is notable for its appearance in the “Cincinnati Kids” episode of The Brady Bunch, filmed at the park in 1973. On May 28, 1982, one side of the Racer became the world’s first full-length, backwards travelling roller coaster (both sides now face forward).

Kings Island officials coaxed Allen out of semi-retirement for the task of designing and building the Racer. He started to design the ride’s blueprints in 1969. Actual construction began in September, 1970. The first trial run came in September, 1971. It worked perfectly the first time as Allen predicted it would.

The Racer was the first roller coaster built structurally on the ground with prefabricated sections lifted into position and bolted. It was one of the largest roller coasters ever built at the time, and the largest that Allen had built. He considered the Racer to be the finest roller coaster he ever built.

There’s more than 600,000 board feet of lumber in the ride. Nobody knows how many nails. The construction crew started with 6,000 tons of nails which lasted only 60 days.

The Racer was the first roller coaster I ever rode back in 1972. I can still remember that ride like it was yesterday and have a lot of fond memories of riding the Racer over and over again, as do many of our guests.

Don Helbig

Don Helbig joined the Kings Island marketing team in 2007 as the park's public relations area manager. He began serving in his current role as area manager, digital marketing last summer.

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Kings Island