A Fury-ous end to the Summer!

     Ever since it was announced, Fury 325 at Carowinds was on mine, as well of every single coaster fans must list. How could it not? It had all the right magic worlds we love to hear – World’s Tallest and fastest giga coaster. The only problem? Living in New York, It wasn’t close to where live. Now my wife Julie and I are no strangers to road trips. In our history, we have already driven once cross country, twice to Dollywood within the span of 3 months, and just this summer having a trip to Cedar Point for the epic CoasterRadio meetup. The thought of another 10 hour plus drive was daunting to say the least but the allure of this gargantuan steel beast perhaps was too great to resist.

As our calendar was quite full, we narrowed it down to a weekend in September, which as a bonus happened to be the first weekend of the park’s Legendary SCarowinds event. So after a long drive up Friday and an evening of some delicious Carolina BBQ with some good friends, we awoke Saturday morning and headed to Carowinds. Energized by some amazing Duck Donuts and coffee, we were ready for a nice long day and night of fun. As we approached the park, seeing awesome skyline of Fury shadowing it’s not so little brother, Intimidator, simply made my jaw drop. Even from a far, the bright green track looked incredibly tall. The excitement grew even more as we made our way towards the front gate through the beautiful new entrance. I had to of course stop on the bridge to get some video of Fury as it raced towards us and then disappeared directly below us only to shoot out the other side at supersonic speed. Even Cedar Point’s Gatekeeper main gate fly-over, pales in comparison to this stunning welcome.

Once we entered, we of course made Fury our first destination. While we couldn’t wait to ride, we graciously allowed our friends to ride first as we waited with their daughter who should be tall enough by next summer to take her first ride. This also gave me time to get all the pics and video and quite frankly geek out at this behemoth up close. It was soon time for our first ride. As we sat into our assigned row which was the second from the front, I gave a look to Julie as if to say “well, we are finally here”. I may have even had some sort of audible representation of that exact sentiment, but I can’t remember completely as I couldn’t wait to ascend that massive lift hill that stood before us. Then, before I knew it, we were off and making our climb on the planet’s tallest giga coaster. Once we reached the top we raised our arms triumphantly as we began our 320 foot drop. As we hit the bottom we could sure feel all 95 miles per hour as this bad boy just does not quit. While I will not go through every element as it would be redundant with so many other reviews out there already of this ride, I will say that every one of them is simply incredible. All I could think of when we hit that break run is wow. The fact that I couldn’t even pick a favorite portion of the ride says a lot as they were all equally impressive. Let me also say this, as incredible of a ride this is, riding at night, brings it up to a level higher than you can possibly imagine.

While the rest of the park was simply fantastic, I will have that review in my summer retrospective series.  Also, look for a SCarowinds review in the days to come as well. In the meantime, if you are a true coaster fan and have not experienced Fury 325, I ask you one question. What are you waiting for?!?!?