The Cobra, made by Venture Rides, is one of my favorite WTCRs. Every Cobra I’ve been on looks like crap, but they all give a grade A, intense, ride. The ride is a long boom tilted on 20-30 degree angle with two, six car satellites on each end. The cars look like skeletons of Paratrooper cars with a tiny overhead bar to keep you from flying out; there is also a foot rest which doesn’t really need to be there.

The ride doesn’t look anything like its name so I don’t know what they were thinking there. The ride is also run using tire drives that are located on top of the boom, exposed to the elements. This ride is horrible in terms of slipping when the tires are wet, I guess since the satellites are so heavy when full with people; all you hear when the moisture laden tire drives kick in is a skidding similar to a car peeling out.

The Ride

The Cobra loads one satellite at a time so while the lower one is loading, the upper one just sits up there and usually spins if there is too much weight on one side. Once both of the satellites are loaded, the boom will start to rotate and then the satellites will start to spin in the same direction. This ride has some incredible speed and G forces because of the same direction spinning and it causes the cars to sway almost completely sideways at the uppermost point of the rotation. Since you’re legs dangle over the side of the car, the Gs will almost certainly put them to sleep making it feel weird to walk for a bit afterwards. The ride doesn’t look like much, but it really gives a hell of a ride that isn’t all that nauseating.

Other Info

This was my first real flatride, I was maybe 5 or 6 when I got to ride this demon. It’s a miracle that I liked the ride considering how intense it is. Wisdom re-made the Cobra  in 2008 with their version called ‘Viper.’ The differences are that the frame can raise and lower to board everyone at once, it now uses a shoulder harness as the restraint, and the seats don’t swing out nearly as much. A person who worked on the ride informed me that the couples that attatch the seats wore out very quickly on the original Cobra, so the redused swinging was more of a  safety measure than anything. Here’s a video of the Viper.

One of my good friends and I have an inside joke about the Cobra involving what we call “carnie water.” However, this could be seen as a cautionary tale as well…

The boom is basically a lattice frame with metal covering the bottom and sides. When it rains the spaces on top of the boom will fill up with water and since the metal covering isn’t exactly water tight, it’ll start to drip under the boom. Of course under the boom are where the 2 satellites are, so you’ll travel through a stream of disgusting, oil, spit, and whatever filled “carnie water,” especially if you’re just waiting up in the air while the other satellite is loading. Once, my friend and I were the only ones on the upper satellite and because of the previous rain storm the tires slipped and sent us through the carnie water. The satellite spun through it, lost steam, and then started to rotate backwards sending us through it yet again! Unfourtunately this continued until the ride started.

Here’s a YouTube video of the Cobra by user SaraAB87.

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