A Picture of Copperhead Strike
A picture of the entrance.
Copperhead Strike is a double launched roller coaster at Carowinds in Charlotte, North Carolina. Manufactured by Mack Rides, the ride opened on March 23, 2019 as part of a newly themed area, Blue Ridge Junction. The ride is the first double-launched roller coaster, and the second launched coaster at Carowinds, after White Lightnin' (now Golden Loop at Gold Reef City).
History[]
Whitewater Falls, a Hopkins Rides shoot-the-chutes water attraction opened in 1988, closed at the end of the 2016 season. No official reasoning was given by the park for the closure of the ride, and the ride remained standing but not operating throughout the 2017 season until it was removed. In 2018, Carowinds began teasing a new attraction for the area formerly home to Whitewater Falls. On August 30, 2018, Carowinds officially announced Copperhead Strike, along with it's accompanying area, becoming the largest investment in the park's history.
Ride experience[]
The ride starts with a slow barrel roll out of the station before a right hand turn into Granny's Jam building. When something in the building goes wrong, riders are launched out of the building at 42 mph into the first of two vertical loops. They then careen into an airtime hill and a fast paced corkscrew, before hitting a turnaround and jumping into the next launch. This one is actually situated over an airtime hill and is virtually unheard of on a Mack roller coaster. The launch boosts the speed from 35 mph to 50 mph, and speeds into an inverted top hat of sorts. That is followed by the second vertical loop around the track following the second launch. It then zooms straight through the first vertical loop and proceeds to travel along some high speed twists and turns in the middle of the ride's spread out structure. That takes it in one last airtime hill towards the brake run, situated directly outside of the station.