Cedar Point has officially announced that its Top Thrill 2 roller coaster will not reopen in 2024, breaking with its previous statements that its closure wouldn’t be “a summer-long thing.”
The statement was released by the Sandusky, Ohio park on social media late Friday afternoon — as bad news often is:
— Cedar Point (@cedarpoint) August 23, 2024
Notably, the statement still doesn’t publicly reveal the precise reason for the closure.
Top Thrill 2 is a revamp of the original Top Thrill Dragster launch coaster, a 2003 addition built by Intamin. The original version shut down after a 2021 accident where a part flew off the coaster and seriously injured a Michigan woman who was standing in the queue (she later sued both Intamin and Cedar Point, alleging she was left permanently disabled by the incident; the suit was settled under undisclosed terms in May.)
Cedar Point chose to work with a different manufacturer for the ride’s reinvention into Top Thrill 2, Italian company Zamperla, which is the owner of Luna Park at New York’s Coney Island. Zamperla had never worked on a coaster as tall or fast as the 420-foot, 120-mph Top Thrill 2, yet the attraction garnered largely positive reviews from early riders before it last operated on May 10.
Friday’s announcement is the first official word on Top Thrill 2’s status in months. Cedar Point spokesperson Tony Clark had said in a late May radio interview that the ride’s closure wouldn’t be “a summer-long thing.”