Let's get up close with Fast & Furious Hollywood Drift
Fast & Furious Hollywood Drift isn't open yet. But Universal Studios Hollywood invited me to walk the new roller coasters queue yesterday with its creative director.
Inside the queue, fans will discover a love letter to movie stunt work, as well as some of the best off-ride views of a major roller coaster that I ever have seen. Hollywood Drift roars just feet above waiting riders in its queue. And when the ride is not rushing past, fans can scan QR codes next to movie show cars and vehicles in the ride's queue, to learn more about how Hollywood stunt coordinators made movie magic with them in the Fast & Furious films.
"This franchise is known for these incredible stunts, so we figured that's a fun place to start," Jon Corfino said. "It's kind of a love letter to stunt people and stunt coordinators behind this franchise."
Hollywood Drift does not attempt to place riders within a Fast & Furious movie or anywhere in that franchise's world. Instead, the idea is to allow riders a chance to learn something about the vehicle stunt work in the films before getting the opportunity to experience what it might feel like to ride along during one of those stunts.
The queue is themed to a garage where stunt coordinators might work. Inside, you will see whiteboard where coordinators might storyboard a scenes from a Fast & Furious movie.
Stunt storyboard in Fast & Furious Hollywood Drift queue
Moving outside, show cars decorate the queue, with QR code placards yet to be installed. But it might be hard to focus on those cars with the ride trains of Hollywood Drift roaring overhead. Each train has four cars, themed to a 1970 Dodge Charger, followed by a Mazda RX-7, a Nissan Skyline GT-R, and a Toyota Supra - all cars featured in various F&F movies. On the ride, the rotating "drift" motion on each car is precisely choreographed. It's not a random spinning coaster. The rotation profile will be different in each of the four cars on the train, but the drift action for each of those specific cars will not change from ride to ride. But that information really won't matter on your first ride.
"When you first go out of that launch, it's a blind drop, so when you're in the car, you don't know where you're going to go," Corfino said. "You could go out this way, that way, whatever."
Want to know how Universal is pulling this off? Take a look underneath the train.
Look underneath the Fast & Furious Hollywood Drift coaster train
This really is the most ambitious attempt to date at marrying a roller coaster with a motion-base ride. Previous mash-ups have added a little coaster action to a motion-base dark ride. But this is a real, grown-up coaster - Universal's fastest in the world and the fastest to open on the west coast in decades.
Each car also has distinct audio on board, to match the engine sound of that particular vehicle in real life.
"When you ride this ride, it is different than whatever you think you've ridden before," Corfino said. "You're in a car, and when you drift, you hear the brake screech. There's this real physical thing you go to that's not a motion simulator - it's physical. You're on a coaster, you're feeling the Gs."
Heck, I felt the Gs when one of the Hollywood Drift cars roared past me in the queue. Check it out.
Universal team members have been riding the coaster, though no public soft opening or official debut dates have been set. Look for an announcement sooner rather than later, however.
For fans in Florida looking forward to Universal Orlando's installation of Fast & Furious Hollywood Drift in 2027, expect a different experience than California riders will be enjoying later this summer. Universal Studios Hollywood's installation is set on the hillside between the park's Upper and Lower Lots, providing amazing views of the San Fernando Valley... for riders whose eyes are not glued to the track in front of them, anyway. The Florida installation will build on flat ground, necessitating changes in track layout, though the thrill of drifting in a muscle car stunt will remain.
Replies (14)
The most dramatic difference between the 2 installations is the spike element currently being erected in Florida, which is rumored to be 170 feet tall.
I'm disappointed that guests won't be welcomed into the "Family" before hopping aboard (maybe that's being reserved for Florida guests), but I think keeping this grounded in Hollywood movie making, and not a specific F&F plot (does anyone even remember the specifics of any F&F story), is the right way to go with this installation.
Watching the video, the most striking thing to me is how quiet the coaster train rides on the tracks. For those unaware, Universal has had to clear a lot of hurdles to build more dynamic thrill rides at USH because of nearby residential neighborhoods and the sound generated by dynamic attractions and screaming riders. As part of this coaster, the design has included a number of "scream shields" to deflect sound, and the park has set up a number of sound monitoring stations nearby to evaluate how various sounds echo against the park's structures and topography. I'm not sure if the track here is filled with sand, which has been used as a sound-muffler elsewhere (most famously on Talon at Dorney Park), but Intamin has definitely done something to allow the trains to swoop by so smoothly and quietly.
I love that they are going with the movie-making aspect and not some inane story about being in the Fast and Furious world. It's a throwback to old Universal. I'm only sad that when I visit in September for HHN, I won't be able to ride it because you need a higher-tier ticket. So infuriating. On the bright side, all the people waiting in line for this should bring the wait times down a little for the houses.
I keep looking at the cars. They only Hold 4 per car Times 4 cars?
Do I have that correct?
So 16 at a time. If they have 4 trains that is only 64 at a time on this ride.
I asked about capacity for this ride before, but this seems so low to me.
@Brian - I am similarly concerned about capacity here, but they do have a double sided load platform, and have been testing with 30-45 second headways on trains, which would compute to a maximum throughput of 1,920 pph. That capacity would top pretty much every ride in the park right now. Even if they are only able to run 60-minute headways, they could get almost 1,000 pph, which is still pretty solid for a thrill ride. Ultimately, the limit here is going to be how fast guests can board and have their restraints checked, because the human element is always going to slow things down. The double load platform should mitigate some of that, but it could still slow things down.
If it's going to be slow in CA, imagine what it's going to be like in Orlando ... what could possibly go wrong !!
I can confirm Russell's numbers here. I timed cycles yesterday at a hair under two minutes. If ops can get people in and out fast enough to keep to that, four-train ops should yield 1,920 an hour. Jon said that they have built a queue capacity for a 75 minute standby wait time without having to go out into the street. And that the ride will open with Universal Express and Single Rider options.
Load and unload should be helped by the mandatory double-sided locker system for all loose items - the same as on VelociCoaster.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but are the vehicles doing anything other than matching what Disney accomplished with Cosmic Rewind? The ride looks fun, but unfortunately it looks like I’ll miss the opening by a week.
Mako- the Orlando installation looks like it's going to have a dual load station, so capacity should get a significant boost.
I'm actually really happy about the behind-the-scenes stunt theme of the queue for this ride. It's definitely a nice callback to the original studio theme of the park. This kind of consistency to a park's overall theme is something Disney could only dream of.
An opening announcement, sooner than later huh... Summer is fast approaching!
"An opening announcement, sooner than later huh... Summer is fast approaching!"
Universal has just announced that the official opening will be June 26, which would meet the typical pre-July 4th expectation for a "Summer" opening. And of course that date is less than a week after we finish our upcoming trip to SoCal (praying to the coaster gods that they happen to do a random soft opening when we're there in 2 weeks or our VIP Tour guide gives us a sneak peak).
I'm kind of surprised this seems to be more of a general stunt driving theme with Fast & Furious overlaid on it rather than something more tied into the franchise. Hopefully there's an appearance by at least a couple of the main actors in the franchise to keep that connection, but this approach does allow for an easy changeover should interest in the IP wane once the series ends.
As for the coaster, I was at the park on Wednesday and they were cycling it all day with four trains on the track (apparently it can run with up to six), so I strongly suspect we're on the eve of technical rehearsals. Rumblings have been putting a consensus opening target on the last week of June, so about two weeks out seems right following the MO of previous Universal attractions. Capacity-wise, I clocked the interval at 48 seconds (averaged over five testing cycles), which would yield 75 trains or exactly 1,200 riders per hour. That's a little lower than the typical range for Universal's coaster attractions (1,300-1,600), but still well above what most rides at your typical Six Flags park are doing these days (200-700).
FWIW, Universal has walked back its June 26 website announcement. Still no official opening date.
@AJ - I guess it would be nice to have a couple of the actors from the series film videos to play in the queue, but I think in this case, the vehicles are the "stars". That's especially true if they're going with this behind the scenes tone to the queue and station, where faceless stunt drivers are the ones directing the movements of the cars in a given scene.
This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.
Looks Great - If I got stuck in a Nissan - I would be pissed.....
Has to be Dodge Charger, or a Toyota Supra....