Mine Blower - Fun Spot America - Kissimmee, FL

In what may go down as the fastest assembly of a roller coaster ever, Mine Blower opened its gates on Friday June 23, 2017. Still covered in sawdust, words used to describe initial reactions were 'insane' or 'explosive.' Really, though? This 83 foot high creation clocking at 48.5 mph does not look very formidable. Sure it's a wooden coaster that has an inversion, but that looked to be the only mildly insane part.

The seats remind me of a simplified Rip Ride and Rockit, adding in a seatbelt. With only 6 rows, it's a quick visual scan and off we go. We do a sharp hairpin turn right out of the station to the lift hill (what is this, a Wild Mouse?) and make our way up the flag-lined 83 foot peak. With another turnaround, we descend... and wow! My second read in the back row, I flew out of my seat rather aggressively. And I swear during the inversion, there was so much hangtime that I was literally standing up while I was upside down. We bank to the left in a slight grey out moment (maybe it was too hot) through the white thin metal support structure. Not sure if this meets any clearance requirements... really that goes for this entire ride though. We go into a double down element ala White Lightning at its sister Fun Spot Orlando park. Bank hard to the right and get some great air time on the hill coming out of it. We lose a little bit of speed (relatively) when we make our way into the huge overbanked turn to the right and dive under some headchopping wooden frames. A couple of high-speed bunny hills before we bank hard to the left and hit the brake run.

The Mine Blower name is apt. The ride is explosive all the way through until the final brake run. Would recommend multiple runs in the front row, as that's probably the only place I could see myself doing this ride more than four times in a row. Every other seat would likely tire me out. After a lot of deliberation, would probably still put White Lightning on top of this. I base this solely off the fact that I could ride White Lightning all night. I enjoy the ejector time of Mine Blower and can't believe how much Gravity Group was able to fit in such a small footprint. However, I'll most likely save Mine Blower for night-time rides only... if anything melts my face, let it be the summer sun OR the coaster. Not both.