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The Beast Re-Opens At Kings Island

ByDan Hower

After more than six months of extensive re-tracking work, The Beast roller coaster has completed its test runs and is scheduled to re-open to Kings Island guests Sunday, May 8th!

The 43-year-old wooden roller coaster has received more than 2,000 ft. of replacement track and a steeper first drop. In March, the amusement park announced that the longest wooden roller coaster in the world was getting longer. Thanks to the off-season work, the coaster grew from 7,359ft. to 7,361ft, and Sunday’s guests will have the first public chance to ride it. CHECK OUT THE BEAST IN ACTION FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2022!

Kings Island’s world famous roller coaster, The Beast, will break its own World Record when it officially takes its first plunge of the 2022 season. The coaster, which opened in 1979 as the World’s Longest Wooden Roller Coaster, has held that distinction ever since. When it opens for the season this Sunday, it will beat its own record by two feet, from 7,359 ft. to 7,361 ft. due to off-season re-tracking and re-profiling work, that also includes a steeper first drop as you can see in the construction video below.

“When you look at roller coaster records, they’re being beat all the time,” said Kings Island Vice President and General Manager Mike Koontz. “But there’s one record that no park in the world has been able to beat for more than 40 years, until now, and that’s the record for the longest wooden roller coaster.”

It’s no wonder that guests from all over the world travel to Kings Island to ride The Beast. Its record breaking features include a 7,361 foot long track (1.4 miles) and ride time of four minutes, 10 seconds; vertical drops of 137 feet (now at a 53 degree angle) and 141 feet (at an 18 degree angle); a 125 foot long underground tunnel at the bottom of the 137 foot drop; eight banked turns, some to 45 degrees; a massive, 540 degree helix tunnel near the end and speeds up to 64.77 miles per hour.

HERE’S 11 THINGS YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THE BEAST

1: By the time workmen had completed the massive Beast construction in March of 1979, they had used 650,000 board feet of southern pine lumber; 37,500 pounds of nails; 82,480 bolts and washers and 2,432 square yards of concrete.

2: The Beast has given more than 56 million rides since its debut in 1979–third most in park history behind the Racer and K.I. & Miami Valley Railroad.

3: Each of The Beast trains have traveled more than 1,000,000 miles.

4: Record-breaking features include a 7,361-foot long track (1.4 miles) and ride time of four minutes, 10 seconds; vertical drops of 137 feet (now at a 53-degree angle) and 141 feet (at an 18-degree angle); a 125-foot long underground tunnel at the bottom of the 137-foot drop; eight banked turns, some to 45 degrees; amassive, 540-degree helix tunnel near the end and speeds up to 64.77 miles per hour.

5: Members of the Kings Island maintenance department walk every inch of The Beast track every morning before the park opens. It’s a nearly four-hour trip they start at 5 a.m.

6: The Beast has three tunnels: The first is 125 feet; the second is 269 feet and the third is 628 feet, for a total of 1,022 feet of darkness.

7: It cost $3.5 million to build The Beast from 1977 to 1979.It would cost over $20 million to re-create it today.

8: At 7,361 feet–The Beast is the longest wooden roller coaster in the world

9: The Beast was constructed in less than a year, after two years of research and design–all by Kings Island personnel. Al Collins and Jeff Gramke were the chief designers of the ride.

10: The original design was modified multiple times, so many times in fact that the finished product looked nothing like the one envisioned when the project began in 1976.

11: Coaster enthusiasts consider The Beast a “terrain coaster.” That refers to the way it follows the contours of the land, using the hills and gulleys to add height to the ride.

The Beast will be unleashed Sunday, May 8, 2022.

Kings Island is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year that kicked off with a historic Birthday Party event! If you missed it, you can see the highlights in the video below, or watch the Full Presentations HERE.

For more information and tickets, visit the official Kings Island website by clicking here.

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