originally posted on 9/17/2019
Photo: Courtesy Energylandia. View full-sized image.
Energylandia amusement park (Zator, Poland) opened its new Rocky Mountain Construction (RMC) hybrid steel coaster, Zadra — doing so on August 22, 2019, notably well ahead of its originally intended debut in spring 2020. Even that goal seemed questionable when in March 2019 a strong storm caused sections of the then-under-construction coaster to collapse. But RMC and the park quickly recovered, and the Zadra project was back on track. So much so, that the park decided to open the ride this year since construction had been completed in record time.
The Alan Schilke-designed, 4,317-foot-long coaster features three inversions along its action-packed course, including a zero-G stall and two zero-G rolls. At 206 feet tall, Zadra is Europe’s tallest hybrid (i.e, steel track and wood-support structure). With a maximum speed of 75 mph and a first drop angled at 90 degrees, the extreme-thrill-bragging stats for Zadra are impressive.
Photo: Courtesy Energylandia. View full-sized image.
Photo: Courtesy Energylandia. View full-sized image.
Zadra is the first from-the-ground-up IBox track hybrid coaster from RMC, as opposed to an IBox rebuild of a former wooden coaster. It is interesting to see what RMC can create on its own (within park-prescribed parameters, of course) with one of the IBox track coasters without having to work from a previously created layout.
Photo: Courtesy Energylandia. View full-sized image.
Photo: Courtesy Energylandia. View full-sized image.
Zadra (Polish for “Splinter”) is part of the park’s Smoczy Grod (Dragon Castle Zone) section, a newly expanded area for Energylandia. The medieval village-themed sector also contains two junior coasters, a dark adventure monorail attraction and a flat ride. The two coasters are Draken, a steel Preston & Barbieri family coaster, and Frida, a steel Vekoma junior coaster. Both opened on July 20, 2019.
Energylandia, which only just came into being in 2014, now has a stunning count of 15 coasters, all steel (including the 252-foot tall, 4,757-foot long and very well-regarded steel Hyperion, just opened last year). Although the park has debuted three new coasters this year, it is planning another for 2020 already, which by all indications will be a Vekoma linear synchronous motor launched, multi-inversion steel thriller.
Photo: Courtesy Energylandia. View full-sized image.
Poland has been the center of some remarkable coaster activity in recent years (check out ACE News, April 2019; RollerCoaster! 148; ACE News, December 2018; RollerCoaster! 144; and ACE News, October 2018). The country is home to 17 parks hosting 38 roller coasters, according to RCDB — excluding alpine mountain coasters, of which there are 12 — with the country featuring one woodie and 37 steelies currently. Twenty-eight of those have opened in Poland in the last six years — four new coasters this year so far, including Wilkolak at Majaland Kownaty, one of only two wooden coasters built worldwide in 2019.
— Randy Geisler
Photo: Courtesy Energylandia. View full-sized image.
Want to take a ride on Zadra?
Video: Courtesy Energylandia.
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