By BRYON SAXTON
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
FARMINGTON -- Lagoon is trading old space to make room for the $3 million Bat, the state's first suspended roller coaster.
"We don't have one of those," Lagoon marketing manager Trent Brown said of the planned suspended roller coaster, which has park employees looking forward to the upcoming season.
"The track will be overhead. We anticipate it will be a great attraction," Brown said.
The ride allows the feet of the seated passengers to dangle.
The roller coaster, manufactured by Vekoma in the Netherlands, will be located where the old Lake Park Terrace once stood, northeast of the park's miniature golf course, Brown said.
With a black, green and purple-colored bat theme, its ground space, or footprint, is about the size of The Wild Mouse ride, with a lift that will take the 20-passenger coaster train to a height of 50 feet, before turning the train loose on a 1,122-foot-long track.
"There are no inversions (spots where people go upside down) on the ride. But it does bank and weave.
"It will bank and weave through the trees on the park," Brown said.
The Bat, included in the cost of a day or season pass, will have some ride restrictions based on height that have yet to be outlined.
Because Lagoon is a family park, Brown said, park officials will do what they can to make the ride accommodate as many young riders as possible within the limit of safety.
"They have to be safety restrained within the ride," Brown said.
"That is where the height restriction comes from."
The ride has a magnetic braking system, so the coaster train, which reaches speeds in excess of 26 mph, will come to a smooth stop, he said.
The Bat will be different from recently added coaster attractions, such as The Wild Mouse and The Spider. It will consist of a coaster train rather than separate cars, and provide passengers -- as a result of the track's being overhead -- with the sensation of flying, Brown said.
The space needed for the new ride was made by tearing down a large, 100-year-old picnic pavilion near Lagoon-A-Beach.
"The Lake Park Terrace was originally built and sat on the banks of the Great Salt Lake when Lagoon was a lakeside resort," Brown said.
Lagoon officials took interest in buying the suspended roller coaster after visiting Paramount Parks back East, where this particular ride -- themed differently in each amusement park -- is a popular attraction. "We're excited to get it," he said.
In recent years, Lagoon has added such rides to the park as Rattlesnake Rapids in 1997, The Rocket in 1999, The Samurai in 2000 and The Spider in 2003.
"We try to bring something new each year," Brown said.
If weather permits, Lagoon will open for the 2005 season by mid-April.
