Lightning Rod at Dollywood is my favorite roller coaster.
Between the relentless speed, the unique setting on the mountain, and powerful airtime, Lightning
Rod is perfection…when it chooses to operate.
While this coaster’s ride experience is incredible, trying to experience this coaster
can be tricky.
But no matter what it takes, Lightning Rod is worth it and I’ll explain why in this
review.
Outlaw Run opened at Silver Dollar City in 2013 as Rocky Mountain Construction’s first
topper track wood coaster.
And it was a resounding success.
This coaster featured steep drops, powerful ejector airtime, and a record-breaking three
inversions.
So when Herschend wanted to add a new coaster to Dollywood in 2016, they went back to RMC
for yet another record-breaking wood coaster and it would be none other than Lightning
Rod.
This attraction would become the world’s first launched wooden roller coaster and also
the world’s fastest wood coaster with a top speed of 73 mph or 117 kph.
But as awesome as these records were, the ride’s placement and layout were the real
stars.
Lightning Rod would be built on a heavily wooded hillside.
The 206 foot or 63 meter tall launch hill and finale were highly visible, but the ride’s
entire first half was hidden from view from park guests.
This part of ride would be nestled in a valley and it’s really only visible backstage or
from some of the nearby cabins.
Then the layout would feature a bevy of crazy elements.
There would be wave turns, off-axis hills, and most importantly, the quadruple down.
The quad down is Lightning Rod’s signature element and it is truly one of the best sequences
of any coaster.
This was one of the most anticipated coasters of all-time.
Too bad it was and still is a royal pain to ride.
Lightning Rod’s opening was delayed 3 months due to issues with the LSM launch system,
which was supplied by a third party in Velocity Magnets.
The ride officially opened in mid-June 2016, but the ride closed just days later due to
a part recall.
When the coaster reopened, it was placed in technical rehearsal for the entire summer
season, closing for hours and days at a time.
The ride was seemingly closed more than it was open.
But the issues only continued.
In June 2017, the ride’s launch was modified and the coaster has run slower ever since.
Many stated the ride was trimmed.
But that is incorrect.
No trims were added after the launch.
The launch still accelerates you to the advertised 45 mph or 72 kph, but it seems to cutoff sooner
so you crest the first hill with less speed.
So why did Dollywood do this?
The original thought was that it had something to do with the launch, which was unique to
this wood coaster.
But I think it was due to structural issues.
Over the next few years, Dollywood tried to reduce stress on the track.
The trains originally had a fancy trunk and lead car.
The trunk was removed altogether and the lead car was downsized.
And at points, the ride has even run without a lead car.
Dollywood often ran the coaster with one train to reduce the number of cycles and cumulative
wear.
The ride developed some potholes over time, including one at the base of the main drop,
so it needed some track work over the years.
RMC originally built Lightning Rod with their topper track technology.
Topper Track differed from traditional wood coasters since the top layers of laminated
wood were replaced with steel.
Most wood coasters have just a thin metal layer atop a stack of wood.
But in the 2020 and 2021 off-season, the 57% of the ride’s Topper Track was replaced
with the all-steel I-Box track.
So Lightning Rod became the first and only RMC to be RMCed.
The launch through the main drop and the ride’s entire second half received the I-Box track.
The wave turn and twist-and-shout still have the old Topper Track.
This makes Lightning Rod a true hybrid, but I consider it more of a steel coaster now
since over half the layout has the I-Box track.
Lightning Rod still has its issues.
The ride is open more than it’s closed, but expect to see this ride have bouts of
downtime throughout the day.
The electromagnetic launch system can still overheat.
The ride can also throw faults like the best of them.
Then last year, two trains bumped.
After a failed launch on a rainy day, Lightning Rod tried to reset itself by moving backwards,
but it went too far and slid into the train in the station.
One other thing to watch out for is snow.
Lightning Rod can run in temperatures as low as 37 degrees, but it still has trouble with
snow and ice.
Because of Lightning Rod’s location, it is very difficult to clear this ride’s tracks
after a snowstorm.
The sun has a hard time hitting the backside of the coaster and the terrain is a challenge
to navigate.
I have only visited Dollywood since Lightning Rod opened.
And I have a 50% success rate with this coaster.
I’ve had better luck in my more recent visits since the ride was retracked.
My fiancee has a 100% success rate, although that was almost thwarted this past weekend.
After Pigeon Forge got 4 inches of snow on Saturday, Lightning Rod was understandably
closed at the start of Sunday.
The park worked their hardest and got the ride open for the final 8 minutes of the day.
And once we saw it opened, we hightailed it across the park.
Honestly, that’s my mentality whenever I see this ride open still because I have been
burned by this ride so many times.
It was closed during my 2016 trip.
Then when I returned for a week long family vacation in June 2017, I saw employees on
the launch and I even saw the ride test, but it never opened.
I then returned in the summer when visiting a friend in Atlanta and it decided to close
for just that weekend.
The first time I was able to ride Lightning Rod was in the winter of 2017 and it was a
nailbiter.
Pigeon Forge was hit with a big snowstorm the week prior and I also tore my ankle.
While Lightning Rod reopened, I could barely walk.
And Dollywood was out of wheelchairs for the weekend.
But I was riding Lightning Rod no matter what.
I took Ibuprofen, bought a big ankle brace, bought an even bigger pair of sneaker to accommodate
the brace, and walked straight-legged up and down the stairs into the station.
I was not being denied Lightning Rod.
And if you’re familiar with this queue line, you know it is a bit of a workout.
The queue house has three levels.
The station is on the top level and then there are switchbacks on the lower two levels.
But Dollywood seems to tweak both the queue line and how they load Lightning Rod season
to season.
Originally, Timesaver and the standby queue were routed directly into the station.
Now, there are three lines on the second level.
The left one is for standby.
The right one is for the Timesaver skip-the-line pass.
And the middle one is a new single rider line.
At the end of the line is a grouper.
They tend to let just one or two train’s worth of people into the station at once.
If you’re in the standby or Timesaver line, they usually will take seating requests.
There isn’t a bad seat on this ride, but my favorite is the front by a slim margin
for the added sense of speed.
Lightning Rod routinely has the longest line at Dollywood.
This is for a few reasons.
One, it’s an epic ride.
Two, it doesn’t have the best capacity.
I still often see the ride running just one train.
Each train holds up to 24 riders.
Three, it is still prone to breakdowns.
The standby wait can easily be 1-2 hours on busy days.
Typically, I buy a Timesaver to maximize my rides on Lightning Rod.
This usually gets you on in 10-15 minutes tops.
The single rider line is usually as fast as the Timesaver as well if you aren’t picky
where you sit.
Lightning Rod has a 50s hot rod theme.
The ride’s queue and station is themed to look like an auto shop.
There are some items on the walls to look at, but not too much.
Then the trains resemble red hot rods with flame decals.
The ride itself has no theming on the course, which is fine.
The layout and setting are strong enough to compensate.
Although the visuals have changed over the past 2 years.
In its early years, many trees hugged Lightning Rod’s layout.
For safety purposes, the trees adjacent to Lightning Rod and many of Dollywood’s other
coasters were chopped down before the 2021 season.
However, this has had a minimal impact on the ride experience for me.
That setting is still so unique and isolated that Lightning Rod feels just as special.
That’s especially true at night.
Lightning Rod is the world’s best night ride.
There is zero light once you clear the mountain, which makes the sideways airtime even more
disorienting.
Then when you crest the top of the quad down, you see the beautiful lights of Dollywood
down below as you careen down one of the best airtime sequences out there.
The restraints are a bit different than other RMCs.
You have the familiar seatbelt.
And you also have familiar contouring on the lap bar plus shin guards.
I don’t mind these restraints at all.
They allow for airtime and I don’t find them uncomfortable.
However, I know those shin guards can be uncomfortable for taller guests.
The unique thing with Lightning Rod is that you lower your own restraint.
On most RMCs, you are chided by the ride ops if you even lower your restraint an inch.
On the bright side, you’re less likely to get stapled.
On the downside, this ride is not very friendly to larger guests.
Dollywood does not push down on the restraints.
So it can be tricky for larger guests to get the restraint down far enough since the employees
cannot help.
That’s especially true during Smoky Mountain Christmas when people have all their bulky
winter coasts on.
I think the ride is as accommodating as other RMCs in terms of how low the restraint needs
to be though.
One other thing to note with the restraints is that they can tighten during the experience.
For that reason, I recommend holding onto the grab bars during the ride to maximize
your room for airtime.
And trust me, there’s a lot of it.
Once dispatched, you roll out of the station and turn towards the launch.
You’ll likely see the LSMs being blasted with mist.
If the ride works correctly, you’ll launch in two phases.
The initial burst takes you from the horizontal to the incline.
After a split second delay, you start accelerating at a stronger rate up the hill.
While Lightning Rod’s launch speed may not look all that impressive, you need to remember
it needs to overcome gravity.
So this launch pulls some solid positive Gs.
It’s reminiscent of the force you feel on the Hulk’s launch, but it’s maintained
longer.
It’s a really unique sensation you don’t get on many launches.
Once the launch cuts off, you start to decelerate as you crest the first hill.
Rather than going straight into the largest drop, you have this dip in between, so the
element has been nicknamed Dolly’s humps.
Before the launch was modified, you flew over the first two hills.
Now, you travel through them at a more gradual rate.
You still get two pops of airtime up front.
And the little dip gives some floater in the back, but the element is a dud in the middle
of the train.
Thankfully the rest of Lightning Rod is insane for everyone.
The second drop is the main plunge, dropping riders 165 feet or 50 meters to the ground.
This drop delivers good sustained ejector airtime for those in the back between its
size and the bit of speed you have going into it.
Even those up front get some floater airtime here.
Then you also have that stunning visual of the valley you drop into.
This drop is one of the most underrated parts of the ride.
The pullout used to have a pothole, but now that it’s steel, it’s very smooth.
And it has decent positive Gs as well.
You don’t get many positive on Lightning Rod, but that’s not much of an issue for
me given how proficient it is in the negative G department.
You then rocket around this massive wave turn.
The scale of this element dwarfs all other wave turns out there.
It offers a few seconds of sustained floater airtime.
The visual of being rotated 90 degrees while levitating out of your seat is stunning.
And I love how gracefully you plummet back down after the element when you’re in the
back row.
Now this pullout is the lone rough spot on the ride.
If you’re in a wheel seat or the back of a car, you’ll feel a bump here.
The rest of the ride is extremely smooth though.
You then charge through a twist-and-shout which feels like a reverse wave turn.
You bank outwards to the left before rapidly twisting and dropping to the right.
This element offers sustained floater airtime like the wave turn.
The airtime is a little weaker, but it’s almost as sustained.
And you really get whipped out of the element too.
From this point, Lightning Rod is all about pure speed and ejector airtime.
You haul offer this off-axis hill, which offers a very strong and sustained burst of ejector
airtime.
Lightning Rod then climbs uphill.
You first fly over half a bunny hill.
You have so much speed over this hill that everyone gets a thigh-crushing pop of ejector
airtime.
You then twist to the right and crest over the hillside into coaster nirvana.
It’s time for the quad down.
You have four very small and violent dips as you descend down the hillside.
Each one has incredibly strong pops of ejector airtime and you have very little time to recover
in between.
Between the power and immense speed, this element is insane.
It truly is one of the best elements in the world.
And it sort of feels like a quintuple down since the there’s this little speed hill
afterwards delivering an equally as strong and aggressive pop of ejector airtime.
You have so much speed over this hill.
And you also have a terrifying headchopper with the wooden supports.
It’s an elite near-miss.
You then twist up the non-inverting half loop, which is a fancy name for a turnaround.
The ascent pulls some decent positive Gs and then you have a super sharp crest, so everyone
gets one last burst of ejector airtime.
You then hit the brake run with a ton of steam and if you’re like most riders, you’ll
be breathless and speechless.
Lightning Rod is incredible.
One of the best aspects about this coaster is its pacing and sequencing.
Lightning Rod has zero deadspots.
There isn’t a moment of wasted track.
It starts with a bang with that thrilling uphill launch and then your body is treated
to an assault of airtime.
The ride seemingly gets stronger as it goes, so you always have something to look forward
to on Lightning Rod.
And the way this coaster maintains its speed is ridiculous.
Most coasters limp into the brake run.
This one seems to get faster as it goes.
So what would I rate Lightning Rod?
Is there any question?
This ride earns a perfect 10 out of 10.
I know this coaster can be a headache to ride…or an ankle injury in my case, but it’s worth
it.
Few coasters have a setting as breathtaking as Lightning Rod’s.
So when you put a high-speed, airtime machine on that hillside, you have a truly special
experience.
Every moment of Lightning Rod is a joy between the speed, forces, and visuals.
This coaster has been my favorite ever since I rode it in 2017 and it has maintained that
spot ever since.
So those are my thoughts on Lightning Rod, which is what I consider to be the world’s
best coaster.
What are your thoughts on Lightning Rod?
Have you ridden multiple versions of this coaster?
Let me know how your experiences on this coaster have gone.
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