Viper is a rare flat ride owned and operated by Fiesta Shows.
This is a forceful spinning attraction from Venture Rides and it’s one of my favorite
rides in Fiesta Shows’s ride lineup, so in this video I will provide an overview of
the ride and review it.
Viper is a Venture Rides Cobra and these types of rides are most commonly found on the fair
circuit.
If you’re unfamiliar with the ride, it consists of an angled boom.
At each end of the boom, there are two circles each consisting of 6 gondolas.
During the ride’s main program, both the boom and individual seat circles rotate via
sets of drive tires, resulting in a dizzying experience.
It resembles a high-speed, sideways Sky Wheel.
The gondolas leave riders very exposed.
The gondolas feel like stripped down Paratrooper carriages.
The gondolas rock and swing outwards throughout the ride.
And you have just a tiny lap bar holding you in.
If you’re familiar with this ride model, the Viper name may confuse you.
Fiesta Shows’s Viper is a Venture Rides Cobra.
Venture Rides is now defunct.
In 2008, Wisdom Rides debuted Viper, which is a modernized version of the Venture Rides
Cobra.
While I have never been on the Wisdom Rides model, by all accounts it sounds less thrilling.
The gondolas cannot swing as far and they also feature over-the-shoulder restraints.
The exaggerated swinging and open ride experience are two of the biggest things going for the
Venture Rides version.
The one area where the Wisdom Rides version is superior is in the capacity department.
The Wisdom Rides version’s boom can raise and lower such that all the gondolas can be
loaded simultaneously.
On the Venture Rides version, the boom is angled at all times, which means only one
group of seats can be loaded at a time.
Not only that, the lap bars are latched behind the seat, which means the operator must individually
lock and unlock each gondola.
And to add insult to injury, some may have difficulties entering and exiting the elevated
gondola, so the operator has to carry around a small set of stairs.
The entire load and unload process for this ride is tedious.
This is among the slowest loading rides I have ever encountered at either a carnival
or an amusement park.
The load times take far longer than the ride’s cycle.
This gives the ride a ridiculously low throughput.
From this point forwards, Viper is going to refer to the Fiesta Shows version and not
the Wisdom Rides model.
Once all the vehicles are secured, the real fun begins.
It’s surprising how intense this ride is given the exposed ride vehicles.
The small circle of seats really rotates at a good clip, which results in a bevy of forces.
The constant rotation results in decent sustained positive Gs and solid laterals throughout
the duration of the ride.
And this rotation forces the seats to swing outwards, so they’re constantly lurching
sideways.
The swinging isn’t fluid.
It feels raw and untamed, which helps give the ride character.
My favorite flat rides are often unpredictable.
I can find some flat rides boring if they perform the exact same motion over and over
again with no variation in the forces.
Viper avoids that pitfall.
The rotating boom coupled with the rotating seats add a major wrinkle into the experience.
Where you are on the small circle of seats relative to the boom plays a major impact.
When the rotation of the large boom synched up with the rotation of the small circle of
seats, you get this turbo boost sensation that accentuates the ride’s sense of speed,
swinging, and positive Gs.
And this also will cause your gondola to rock forwards and backwards, which feels completely
out-of-control since you’re sometimes swinging outwards simultaneously.
The final element that makes Viper so thrilling are the non-stop near-misses.
The forward and backward rocking provides a terrifying head-chopper with the coupler
above your head.
And then you also have some shocking leg-choppers.
The ride has a central support column, but there are two thin supports that extend diagonally
outwards.
These additional two supports come frighteningly close to the gondolas when you’re on the
interior of the circle of seats.
The ride cycle isn’t super long, but that may be deliberate to prevent protein spills
and keep the line moving.
The version at Fiesta Shows only runs forwards, but it is possible to have versions that run
either backwards or in both directions.
Since the ride is powered by drive tires, it’s easy to reverse the motion.
And I really wish I could experience one of these rides one-day in reverse.
Getting positive Gs, laterals, and swinging while traveling backwards sounds heavenly.
So what would I rate Viper?
I would give this ride a 9 out of 10.
The combination of positive Gs, laterals, rocking, swinging, and near-misses results
in a ride experience that’s both forceful and disorienting.
Really my only minor gripes with the ride are the painstakingly slow loading process.
The ride itself is one of the best spinning rides out there since it’s able to vary
the visuals and forces so effectively.
If you’re hoping to ride the version owned by Fiesta Shows, it’s relatively easy to
track down.
If you look up a specific carnival on the Fiesta Shows website, they will often list
their ride lineup.
Fiesta Shows used to have a version of this ride called Cobra that I often saw in the
late 1990s/early 2000s, but then it disappeared for over a decade.
Over the past 3-4 years, I have seen this Viper appear fairly regularly.
The last caution I need to provide is the ride’s policy on single riders.
Usually you can ride this alone.
However, I was told I needed a partner to ride it at the Topsfield Fair in 2019.
I’m not sure if that was to maximize revenue or due to weather conditions that day, but
I’ve only run into that issue once.
So those are my thoughts on the Fiesta Shows Viper, a rare and disorienting flat ride.
Have you been on one of these Venture Rides Cobras or the updated version from Wisdom
Rides?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this ride.
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