When Test Track opened to the public in the spring of 1999, it was not only unique from
any ride that Disney had ever built before, but it was also unlike anything else in the
entire theme park industry.
The fast-paced attraction was a brand-new take on the already successful dark ride concept,
and it took things to the next level by combining immersive scenery and storytelling with high
speeds and hairpin turns.
These thrilling elements provided a more intense experience almost like a roller coaster, however
the way that Test Track works is different because it is not powered by gravity.
Instead of using an existing technology, Disney Imagineering teamed up with a company called
Dynamic Attractions to develop a new type of ride system;
One that put passengers behind the wheel of a self-driving electric vehicle on an actual
road surface.
This made the ride feel as close as possible to literally driving a car around a racetrack,
since the ride vehicles operate just like real cars under the hood.
The real sensation of driving was crucial to the ride’s overall theme, which is something
that actually pre-dates Test Track by more than 20 years, all the way back to a former
attraction that was housed in the same building.
To summarize a bit of history, the Walt Disney company had originally entered into a sponsorship
deal with General Motors in the late 1970’s, and they worked together to build a ride called
World of Motion which debuted at the grand opening of EPCOT in 1982.
This was an omni-mover type attraction that took guests through the entire history of
human transportation, starting at the very beginning with the invention of the wheel,
and culminating with modern automobiles by showing off GM’s latest designs and futuristic
prototypes.
The ride would operate for just over 13 years as Disney and General Motors worked through
several contract negotiations, but it was around 1992 that GM decided it was time to
build something new with a more direct focus on their car lineup.
This is when Dynamic Attractions was brought onboard to help engineer the new ride system,
and the initial design concept for Test Track was slowly brought to life through 4 years
of research and development, before being officially revealed to the public in 1996.
Test Track was set to be an innovative thrill ride that would take passengers through a
mockup of the General Motors proving ground, which is a real facility where new GM vehicles
are tested before going into production.
The central idea or storyline would essentially put the guests in place of crash test dummies
as their vehicle is taken through a series of performance tests and different driving
scenarios.
These included an accelerated hill climb at a 15-degree angle;
a suspension test on a variety of road surfaces; an anti-lock brake test with ABS turned both
off and on; a series of environmental chambers for temperature
and corrosion; and a handling test with blind turns and a
near-miss with a semi-truck.
At the end of the ride, the grand finale began with a barrier test, where the car would accelerate
towards a wall that opened at the very last second to reveal an outdoor track.
Here, the car would travel down a straightaway and through a boot-shaped turnaround, followed
by a high-speed lap around the exterior of the building, reaching a top speed of 65 mph
before returning back inside.
The attraction was originally expected to open in the spring of 1997, only 16 months
after World of Motion was closed to make way for its construction, however the ride was
unfortunately plagued by technical issues that were discovered during initial testing.
One of the most notable problems was related to the control system, which had to manage
up to 29 vehicles on the course at any given time in order to meet capacity requirements.
The software that was initially written to control the ride was only able to handle a
maximum of 6 vehicles without crashing, and after extensive troubleshooting, it was eventually
determined that the software had to be re-written from scratch;
A process that took the engineers an extra year and a half to complete.
Test Track would finally have a soft opening during the winter of 1998, but the ride was
still prone to frequent errors and breakdowns at that time, and the official opening was
delayed further until the spring of 1999, almost 2 years later than initially planned.
Despite the extensive delays, Test Track still turned out to be a huge success for Disney,
as well as a fan favorite among visitors, and it operated without any major changes
until the spring of 2012.
As the existing sponsorship with General Motors was coming to an end, GM ultimately decided
that the ride needed another refresh in order to renew their contract.
However, instead of constructing a whole new attraction, this time they would simply work
with Disney to re-skin the existing one, which would now focus on their Chevrolet lineup
as opposed to GM as a whole.
The ride closed for an 8-month refurbishment as the interior of the building was completely
overhauled, and it reopened at the end of the year with a new modern theme that still
remains in place today.
Rather than maneuvering through a physical test facility, passengers now board a virtual
car called a sim-car, and they evaluate its performance in a simulated environment called
the sim-track.
Guests have the opportunity to design their own concept vehicle in a Chevrolet design
studio as they move through the queue, and that design gets paired to their respective
sim-car so they can see how it fairs out on the course.
This interactive system was created by a technology consulting company called Polysonics, who
designed everything from the screens and user interface to the custom graphics and animations,
as well as all of underlying software for show control and RFID tracking.
After a guest creates a custom vehicle in the design studio, the system then links that
design to an RFID tag located in the guest’s wrist band or key card, and the ride will
display performance stats for their vehicle as they navigate around the track.
This adds a level interactivity and competition that was not present in the original version
of Test Track, however it is really just an overlay that has no real impact on the ride
itself.
The actual course is still exactly the same as it was before, but the various tests have
been re-themed to evaluate four main criteria, which are capability, efficiency, responsiveness,
and power.
I think the idea that Disney and GM were going for with the sim-track is that passengers
are meant to be testing a car inside a computer simulation, just like one an automotive engineer
might use when designing a new vehicle, however I don’t think the storyline is quite as
clear as it was with the former proving ground.
Nonetheless, the underlying ride system has remained effectively unchanged since Test
Track first opened more than 20 years ago.
The indoor portion of the attraction is housed inside a massive circular building with a
diameter of 320 ft, and it contains more than 3 acres of total floor space.
The building was originally constructed to resemble the wheel of a car in order to go
along with the transportation theme for World of Motion, but of course, the design is still
equally fitting for Test Track.
Under the roof, the ride layout is split between two primary levels.
The lower level contains the station and loading area, as well as a backstage section leading
to the maintenance bay, while the rest of the space is used for the queue, gift shop,
vehicle displays, and mechanical rooms.
The station is connected to a circular launch zone where the final safety checks are performed,
and this leads into the 3-storey hill climb up to the second level.
All the dark ride scenes are packed in up here without much room to spare, and there
are a couple of elevation changes between 0 and 12 feet off the ground so the track
can weave over and under itself.
There is also a long section of storage track hidden in another backstage area, which runs
underneath the responsiveness test and over to the far end of the capability test at the
opposite side of the building.
The sliding barrier wall is located in the north-east quadrant where the track exits
to the outside, and the ride heads out and back through an employee parking lot before
completing a lap around the building and re-entering back into the station.
In total, the layout has almost exactly 1 mile of track with about half a mile inside
and half a mile outside, making it the longest track ride that Disney has built to date;
And with a top speed of 65 mph, it is also the fastest ride that Disney has ever built
thanks to the clever ride system from Dynamic Attractions.
The way it works is similar to a slot car set, where the car has an electric motor that
receives power through conductive strips embedded in the track, and it is guided along by a
pin that runs in a small groove.
Test Track is essentially just a life-size version of this, but with real cars and a
more advanced control system.
Each vehicle has 4 rubber tires that are in contact with the road surface, and these are
the actual drive wheels that support the weight of the car and propel it forward.
The wheels are driven by a 250-horsepower electric motor located in the trunk, which
can accelerate the car from 0 to 65 mph in about 8.8 seconds, while the onboard computers
and electronics are stored in the front.
Although the ride vehicles were always intended to be electric, the very first one was actually
a gas-powered prototype that was built as a proof-of-concept during development, and
it revealed early on that the car’s weight was going to pose a significant challenge.
The prototype frequently broke its axles and blew out tires due to the high stress, and
so a lot of engineering effort was focused on weight reduction for the final design.
As a result, every Test Track vehicle has a chassis that is constructed entirely from
composite materials without any steel, and the tires were specially designed by Goodyear
to handle the intense driving conditions.
Goodyear went through several iterations as the ride was being tested in order to get
the performance and ride quality just right, while also making sure the tires could hold
up to the 140 miles that each car travels per day.
Even with the weight reduction measures, each car still weighs in at approximately 4,800
lbs, which is comparable to an electric sedan like a Tesla Model S.
The ride vehicles actually have a lot in common with high end electric cars, including the
6-figure price tag, however each one is secured to a track and busbar system that runs underneath
the road.
There are two bogies that extend below the chassis at the front and rear of the car,
each with 8 wheels that lock the vehicle to a pair of rails just like a roller coaster.
The large horizontal ones are guide wheels that keep the vehicle centered on the track,
and the smaller vertical ones are up-stop wheels that prevent the car from lifting off
the road surface.
The road has a continuous opening down the center with one rail positioned on either
side, and so the internal structure is basically two separate tracks that run parallel to each
other while the bogies travel through the middle.
Directly underneath the bogies, the track structure also houses a busbar system that
is used for power and control.
The busbar consists of 6 metallic strips or bars that span the entire course like a slot
car track, with 3 bars being supported on either side.
There is a collector assembly that extends down from the front bogie of the vehicle,
and it has 12 spring-loaded arms with conductive pads called collector shoes.
Two of these shoes are pressed into contact with each bar at all times, which allows the
vehicle to pick up or collect the current that is flowing through them.
The bars are intentionally oriented facing down with the collectors pressing up, so if
anything were to fall through the opening above, it will not cause a short circuit.
The 3 busbars shown on the right carry 480 volts A/C in 3 phases, with each bar carrying
1 phase, while the first bar on the left carries a ground signal.
The 2 remaining bars are used for communication between the central controller the vehicles,
and they also divide the course into separate block zones.
Safety is a critical component of the ride since there can be up to 29 cars on the same
track at any given time, and the control system manages this many vehicles by spacing them
between the zones so that the chance of a collision is basically zero.
The system has undergone a number of upgrades over the years, including a recent overhaul
in early 2020, however the fundamental principles are still the same.
The first communication busbar is used to carry a “go” signal from the central controller,
which indicates that it is safe the proceed, and when a vehicle is present, it applies
its own “no go” signal to the second busbar, which tells the controller and other vehicles
that it is not safe to enter the same zone.
A vehicle is only allowed enter a zone when the “go” signal is active and when the
“no go” signal is not active, and the system will always maintain a buffer of at
least 1 zone between them.
If a car infringes on that buffer, then the controller will drop the “go” signal for
the trailing vehicle, and it will come to a stop until the lead car has cleared the
adjacent section.
The only exception to this is on the hill climb at the beginning of the ride, where
vehicles are actually permitted to occupy adjacent zones at the same time.
In addition to stopping vehicles individually, the central controller also has the ability
to stop all the cars at once by dropping the “go” signal throughout the entire course,
however the 480-volt power busbars will still remain online unless a full e-stop is triggered.
To ensure that the ride is fail-safe, the computers onboard the vehicles are redundant
with two identical devices operating in parallel, and any fault or discrepancy between them
will automatically bring the whole ride to a stop.
The computers continuously measure the vehicle’s position and speed, and they use a set of
feedback loops to control the electric motor so that the speed always matches the pre-determined
ride program that is stored in memory.
Both are independently coupled to the busbar system and an array of onboard sensors, as
well as to a digital transceiver that is mounted on the bottom of the chassis, which communicates
with the central controller wirelessly.
Each car operates on its own specific frequency, and the controller sends and receives signals
using antennas installed under the track in order to avoid outside interference.
This wireless communication system provides highly accurate position tracking, which is
especially important in the station area where the vehicles need to move in close proximity,
and it is also used for reporting vehicle status and any faults.
For an added layer of redundancy, the vehicles verify their position by physically measuring
the distance that they travel along the track using a set of idler wheels, and so together
with the busbar and wireless control, it is virtually impossible for more than one car
to be in the same zone at any time.
However, in order for the control system to be effective, it is equally important to for
ride to have a robust braking system that can bring all the cars to stop safely.
Each vehicle is equipped with hydraulic disc brakes just like a regular car, but there
are dual calipers on every pad for extra stopping power, and these are only activated if the
ride needs to come to an immediate stop.
The disc brakes are not used to slow the vehicle during normal operation since this can be
done using the electric motor, and the pads would also wear out too quickly.
When current is removed from the motor, it will naturally act as a generator and slow
the car down with dynamic braking as it converts kinetic energy back into electrical energy.
This is similar to the regenerative braking that is used on most electric cars today,
however Test Track does not use batteries, so the excess energy is simply dissipated
rather than stored.
The current being delivered to the motor is precisely regulated to achieve the desired
stopping force, and it can even be reversed to produce a greater negative torque for additional
braking power.
To make the system redundant, each vehicle also has a set of fail-safe disc brakes that
will engage automatically during an e-stop or power loss.
These essentially work in the opposite way to standard disc brakes because pressure needs
to be applied to disengage the brake rather an applying pressure to engage the brake.
With the fail-safe version, the pads are spring-loaded against the rotor and a constant force is
needed to keep them apart.
The vehicle is able to hold the brakes open and drive freely as long as the busbar is
powered on, but they will clamp shut and stop the ride as soon as power is lost.
Together, these independent braking mechanisms ensure that the cars will always be able to
stop safely in any situation, which is the number one priority for minimizing the risk
of a collision.
Of course, proper maintenance is also extremely important with all of the complex systems
onboard, and so the vehicles are frequently inspected and maintained just like any regular
car; Plus, each one is routinely disassembled and
fully rebuilt in order to check every component for damage and wear.
If you take away the bogies, then each car is basically a real electric vehicle that
requires the same level of care, and in theory, if you just added a battery and manual controls,
then you could actually drive one down a city street.
Now even with all of the safety features and redundancies, one part of the ride that still
seems slightly dangerous is the barrier wall that appears to open at the last second.
Here, the sliding doors are equipped with sensors that will tell the controller to stop
the car if they are not functioning properly, and even if that failed, the doors are actually
constructed from a soft Styrofoam material so the car can easily break through.
This really exemplifies how Disney and Dynamic Attractions took every precaution to make
the ride as safe as possible, which is exactly what should be done when designing a new type
of attraction from the ground up.
The innovative slot car system has proven to be successful despite the initial challenges
to get it up and running, and it set the groundwork for future versions like Radiator Springs
Racers at Disney California Adventure, and Journey to the Center of the Earth at Tokyo
Disney Sea.
The engineering behind Test Track was cutting edge in the industry when it opened more than
20 years ago, and I think the technology that drives this high-speed attraction is just
as impressive today as it was back then.
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I’d also love to hear any stories about your personal experience on Test Track down
in the comments, and let me know if there are any other attractions that you would like
to see covered on this channel next.
As always, thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.