Carowinds today announced that it has closed three rides, including its Vekoma Flying Coaster.
Nighthawk joins Scream Weaver and Drop Tower in exiting the park, which has announced a Camp Snoopy expansion for its 2025 season. The Carolinas theme park also has announced a "record-breaking" water ride for 2026, as part of Six Flags' billion-dollar investment across the company's parks over the next two years.
Nighthawk opened in 2000 at California's Great America as Stealth. It was the first Flying Coaster from Vekoma - a model line that culminated with the acclaimed F.L.Y. at Germany's Phantasialand. Then-owner Paramount Parks moved Stealth to Carowinds in 2004, where it operated as Borg Assimilator for three years, becoming Nighthawk when Cedar Fair obtained the chain and dropped Star Trek and other Paramount-controlled IPs.
"We know that saying goodbye to beloved rides can be difficult, and we appreciate your passion," Carowinds said in its announcement of the ride closures. "These changes are an important part of our growth and underscore our commitment to elevating the park experience. We’re excited about the future, and we can’t wait to begin this journey with you at Carowinds."
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I rode Nighthawk for the first time this summer - they were running one train at a time so the load took awhile, and the ride was extremely unpleasant. It is one of the very few coasters where I wanted it to end as soon as it began. Excited to see what is to come!
As California's Great America is (for now) my home park, I often took advantage of passholder early ride time on Stealth Hawk. It's where my son learned to "wait here while Dad rides, then we'll go see Scooby Doo". When I read it was leaving, I went for a last ride, and literally passed a truck on the freeway hauling track. Always thought they bungled that. After a huge promotional campaign when it opened, there were no "ride one more time" ads.
Last year we went to Carrowinds. Once was enough. Yeah, it's time to retire. But at least my son didn't have to wait for me at the exit.
my one and only visit to KI in 2014, firehawk had been down all day, but as i was having my planned final ride on invertigo, i saw that it was up and running so i changed plans and hiked to the back of the park to ride. one train operation so about an hour in line. oh, to have that opportunity back. one of the worst coaster experiences ever. i was happy when they announced its removal (good riddance, i thought). on my 2 visits to carowinds, thankfully nighthawk wasn't open but i wouldn't have ridden it anyway. glad to see improvements on the way.
Vekoma Flying Dutchman is one of my favorite coaster models due to the sheer novelty so I'm sorry to see another one bite the dust. I will say, however, that I've had good and bad experiences on these. Rode Batwing many years ago and had a blast; enjoyed Nighthawk on my first visit to Carowinds but hated it on my last, as it had become extremely rough. Adored Firehawk until its next to last night of operation, when I got stuck on the lift hill on my back for an hour and a half on a cold wet night and had to be evacuated.
I completely understand why parks close and remove aging attractions, but I just don't get why a park makes announcements like this after the regular operating season has ended. From all indications, these attractions were on the chopping block the moment Six Flags merged with Cedar Fair, so it makes no sense to me why it took until now for them to make this announcement. Certainly, no one is going to be heartbroken that these unreliable and outdated rides are leaving, but it's silly that Six Flags didn't capitalize on these removals by announcing them prior to the end of the season to encourage extra visits outside of peak attendance months, especially for a coaster that was a first of its kind. I guess given how SF unceremoniously axed Kingda Ka, we shouldn't be surprised, but I was hoping individual park operators/managers would have some pull to make sure their guests would feel like the local staff cared about their parks and fans.
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The only surprise here with Nighthawk is that it lasted this long, these things were godawful. This one was probably the worst as well, I rode it at PGA and did not ride again when visiting Carowinds even though it was operating. I don't think I ever met anyone that actually liked this ride. I did kind of like the name and theme "Borg Assimilator" though, that was pretty unique.
It wouldn't surprise me at all to see Batwing removed from SFA (or maybe they are just going to run it for another year and close the whole park after that).
As a teenager I worked on the Schwarzkopf Enterprise and Intamin 2nd Gen Drop Tower at SFGAm and thought both were really great rides that were pretty popular, especially considering the small footprint they take up. Considering their locations at Carowinds are separated in a way that makes it not conducive to a new attraction, this seems like a budget cut, which is a huge disappointment with no replacements.