In the time it takes to finish reading this sentence, you and 17 others could have rocketed from 0 to 120 miles per hour, turned at a 90-degree angle and headed straight to the top of a 42-story building, plummeted in a free fall, whipped through a 270-degree corkscrew and traveled almost one-half of a mile.

If you were riding on the Top Thrill Dragster, that is.

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The Dragster, which overlooks Lake Erie at the Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio, is worlds apart from the brain-dead roller coasters of old that relied on a greasy chain to clunk the car up a wooden hill. The Dragster's operators employ an array of modern technology to create an experience for riders that is the rough equivalent of being launched from an aircraft carrier deck, where jets accelerate from 0 to 165 mph in about 3 seconds.

Inner-workings

For starters, the Dragster is wired with 560,000 feet of copper cable to carry back performance data from 300 redundant pairs of sensors located throughout the track and engine room. The majority of the sensors are proximity switches that can measure the movement of the metal coaster car over the track. There are also thermal temperature and pneumatic sensors. If any one of the sensor pairs fails to match the readout of the other, the Dragster is shut down for a safety check.

But the data aren't just collected for safety. They also help produce the perfect ride on every launch. The parameters within which the Dragster has to operate are so finely tuned that variable load weights from people, wind speed and out-side temperature affect its performance.

So data ranging from the velocity of the roller coaster car at the top of the tower to wind speed and direction (taken from an anemometer atop the tower) are collected on every ride and analyzed using proprietary software developed for Cedar Point. After every third launch, the data are averaged and compared with historic launch data in an effort to create that perfect ride - the roller coaster must go fast enough to clear the top of the tower, but slow to between 7 and 15 mph in order to give riders the maximum lift effect at the top.

Based on the comparison of current and historical data, the Dragster corrects itself by adjusting the pressure of the engine and other parameters to produce as near perfect a ride as possible every time.