White Lightning • Fun Spot America

White Lightning is an excellent GCI. Loaded with airtime moments and relentless pacing. It’s a little weaker than some of GCI’s larger coasters, but overall it’s an extremely strong wooden coaster. Su...

White Lightning is an excellent GCI. Loaded with airtime moments and relentless pacing. It’s a little weaker than some of GCI’s larger coasters, but overall it’s an extremely strong wooden coaster. Super smooth for a wooden coaster as well.

This ride completes the park's mission to feel like a classic American amusement park with modern comforts. The rides in the 2013 expansion were placed down all at once and designed with each ride's p...

This ride completes the park's mission to feel like a classic American amusement park with modern comforts. The rides in the 2013 expansion were placed down all at once and designed with each ride's placement in mind. Though the size of the park was doubled, the landplot was still quite small, and the flats and other coaster were taking up much of the space. As a result, GCI was tasked with making a wooden coaster with an out and back layout that looks classic as the park's backdrop, but rides like a fast and furious modern GCI woodie. In addition, they had to do it with a small height and short length, while still making the ride imposing as the signature coaster at the park. And wow, did they succeed. White Lightning is a perfect signature coaster for a family friendly park like Fun Spot. It looks pretty, looks big, and is dominant in this section of the park. The turnaround just barely misses the go-karts section, and whizzes by the Screaming Swing and Enterprise. As for the ride experience, it's excellent. GCI's floater airtime, short ejector pops, and moments of laterals and speed lend themselves much better to a more family friendly coaster, while still being a very fast paced blitz of a coaster. The first drop is a great sideways whip, and the first turn low to the ground turn is fast and floaty, with the whole sequence being expertly designed in the balance of forces and flow that I could only dream of perfecting. The signature element is a homage to Phoenix, and is very recognizable from the road as you approach the park. The double up is a sharp pop of ejector, and probably the strongest on the ride. You get floater airtime on the crest of the element, and a double down gives even more sweet floater air. If guests haven't realized how modern this woodie is by now by the curved first drop and first turn, they're about to learn. The turnaround is a full 90 degree overbank, which then dives to the left in a downwards helix, which leads into a great twisted floater hill. As the layout bottlenecks between the road and the too close flat rides, White Lightning reminds its guests of its classic roots with two straight floater airtime hills. If guests are fooled into sense of security again like they were with the double up and double down, White Lightning switches back into GCI high gear until the end of the ride. A twisted floater hill on the way up leads to an excellent double down with a pop of ejector, which again drops into another ejector pop hill. A sharp 90 degree right turn gives the strongest laterals on the ride, followed immediately by more ambiguous airtime pops and unbanked corrections before the final hop into the brake run, which for every one of my friends who ride this with me, leaves you breathless and wanting to ride again.

This thing was very fun! It has some nice floater to near-floater pops, and a quick paced layout! I don't think it compares very favorably to some taller and more intense GCIs, but it doesn't need to,...

This thing was very fun! It has some nice floater to near-floater pops, and a quick paced layout! I don't think it compares very favorably to some taller and more intense GCIs, but it doesn't need to, the ride is great for what it is.

This one is by far my favorite in the small park. It's what attracts any roller coaster fan to the area. It has a fairly decent first drop with a nice lateral kink to it. What makes this one a lot ...

This one is by far my favorite in the small park. It's what attracts any roller coaster fan to the area. It has a fairly decent first drop with a nice lateral kink to it. What makes this one a lot of fun is the sporadic airtime you get throughout the duration. The layout is so much fun and they did a great job throwing in as much variety as possible. I was also impressed with how smooth it was which I assume is a decent re-tracking job within the last few years but maybe it's just taken care of consistently. It could use a bit more height and more length to bump it up half a star compared to my other higher-rated woodies but I was happy to lap this one to wrap up my day. 3.5/5 stars

Underrated. Super smooth and lots of fun with some surprising airtimes and laterals. The only drawback is that it's on the shorter side. A big plus is that it's across the street from Universal, so...

Underrated. Super smooth and lots of fun with some surprising airtimes and laterals. The only drawback is that it's on the shorter side. A big plus is that it's across the street from Universal, so it's easy to get to. I really enjoyed this little coaster.

Je m'attendais a pas grand chose vu l'échec de l'autre fun spot et au final ce wooden est pas si mauvais que ça ! Il y a un accoup dans le demi-tour qui est assez violent mais le reste du layout est v...

Je m'attendais a pas grand chose vu l'échec de l'autre fun spot et au final ce wooden est pas si mauvais que ça ! Il y a un accoup dans le demi-tour qui est assez violent mais le reste du layout est vraiment pas mauvais. Juste c'est l'entretien a la fun spot donc de la rouille en veux-tu, en voilà

Modèle originel dont Heide est cloné. Il ne paye vraiment pas de mine avec ses supports rouillés, mais il trace. L’armature tout en acier fait que le train va plus vite (enfin c’est l’inverse, c’est H...

Modèle originel dont Heide est cloné. Il ne paye vraiment pas de mine avec ses supports rouillés, mais il trace. L’armature tout en acier fait que le train va plus vite (enfin c’est l’inverse, c’est Heide & Cie. qui vont moins vite avec la structure en bois qui dissipe plus d’énergie en bougeant). Les airtime sont vraiment pas mal, j’ai été très surpris ! Hormis le demi tour qui donnait un à coup, pas de problème de confort notable

This is a fun ride but comparing it to other GCI's I have done it's definitely towards the bottom of the list. The first drop has good laterals and the whole layout has good but not great airtime. The...

This is a fun ride but comparing it to other GCI's I have done it's definitely towards the bottom of the list. The first drop has good laterals and the whole layout has good but not great airtime. There are plenty of hills but none of them really stand out. The ride loses some steam by the end but it's still super fun and very rerideable.

It’s not a tall coaster and has a fairly simple out and back layout but it’s very smooth and has lots of airtime and so it’s easy to repeat. It’s the perfect smaller adult coaster and good introductio...

It’s not a tall coaster and has a fairly simple out and back layout but it’s very smooth and has lots of airtime and so it’s easy to repeat. It’s the perfect smaller adult coaster and good introduction for kids and a lot of fun.

White Lightning offers a well paced flurry of forces, lots of small pops of airtime and laterals being crammed into the punchy little layout, that while ends quite quickly, is overall very satisfactor...

White Lightning offers a well paced flurry of forces, lots of small pops of airtime and laterals being crammed into the punchy little layout, that while ends quite quickly, is overall very satisfactory for what this ride should deliver.

This is such a fun ride. It gives good airtime and laterals, and its fast pacing makes it a great ride. Its a very short ride though, but it is the most they could do with their land, and they did the...

This is such a fun ride. It gives good airtime and laterals, and its fast pacing makes it a great ride. Its a very short ride though, but it is the most they could do with their land, and they did they still made an awesome coaster that made my top 10 within my first ride. The ride is just good fun, its not really anything too impressive, but its so fun and once you get off, you instantly wanna go back. It recently got re tracked and is glossy smooth now which is great for the ride.

Je l'ai essayé après Heidi pour lequel j'avais été bien déçu, lors d'une journée bien grise. Le modèle floridien que je n'ai testé que de nuit m'a plus emballé je dois dire. Ça trace vite, bons enchai...

Je l'ai essayé après Heidi pour lequel j'avais été bien déçu, lors d'une journée bien grise. Le modèle floridien que je n'ai testé que de nuit m'a plus emballé je dois dire. Ça trace vite, bons enchainements. Mais néanmoins pas d'airtime notoire, donc pour moi ça bloque, désolé.

This ride feels like a family coaster on steroids. It’s not what I would call thrilling or exhilarating, but it packs a bit of a punch. There wasn’t as much airtime as I thought there would be (just m...

This ride feels like a family coaster on steroids. It’s not what I would call thrilling or exhilarating, but it packs a bit of a punch. There wasn’t as much airtime as I thought there would be (just mild pops of floater), but I hadn’t ridden in the back. Overall, it’s a nice little ride with some pretty good elements.

Very good quality small scale GCI. A pretty intense ride with some good floater moments. Has a few rough spots to it but nothing too bad. The first drop is pretty whippy. The way out has some good mom...

Very good quality small scale GCI. A pretty intense ride with some good floater moments. Has a few rough spots to it but nothing too bad. The first drop is pretty whippy. The way out has some good moments of laterals and airtime. The one complaint with this section for me is the double seems a bit too high up. You lose a good bit of speed to it but at least you get a solid double down right after. The turnaround has some good lats and the way back is the same as the way out, lot's of floater and whip. The final turn into the brakes has some laterals as well. White Lightning is overall a good GCI. Definitely not the best but has some good moments.