Zonga was a ride I had been anticipating greatly for months...check that...years. I first learned of the ride as Taz's Texas Tornado at Astroworld, then later learned of its background as the travelling ride Thriller in Germany. To think that such a large jumble of steel, with more track than many coasters at 3675', could be a travelling ride boggled my mind. Not only is the length of Zonga impressive for such a compact space, its loops are impressive. The first two loops are circular and back-to-back, literally. The third loop has a slight kick to the side, however, these are nothing compared to the insanity that is the fourth loop. The final loop begins much like a regular loop, but finishes thinking it's a corkscrew. It doesn't look real, or possible, even when standing directly in front of it. Everytime I saw a train go through that "loopscrew" I got the strangest grin on my face, thinking that it simply wasn't possible. I thought the forces going through that loop would be too intense for most riders. Unfortuntely I was unable to find out until very late in the day, after I had almost given up hope in riding Zonga that day.

The plan for opening day was for Tom and I to drive up to Six Flags Marine World in the cover of night, at 2am, from the Los Angeles area to Vallejo. As well as plans are laid, things can go awry, as mother nature decided to let the rain fall on what was to be the re-birth of Thriller as Zonga. I say re-birth since this ride is no longer the Thriller from Germany, or even Texas. Modifications were made to reduce the intensity of the crushing 6.5 positive g's riders used to endure. Marine World elected to raise the loops around 10ft in height, thus dropping the length of the first drop as well. In addition to these drastic changes, the park removed one car from each train creating a five-car train. Finally, the trains have received a new restraint system from Larson Intl which are very snug but well padded. For opening day only one train was available, although this didn't cause a problem with the lack of crowds due to the rain throughout the day. Around 12:30pm-ish, the rain had let up enough for Zonga to send a few test runs, but the rain started back up even more furious to really put a damper on things. Our day at Marine World wasn't going splendidly either, partially due to the rain, but we held out in hopes of some clear skies later in the day which is what we got.

About the time 5pm rolled around, the rain had begun to subside. Blue sky could be seen in the distance and soon all around. Although dark clouds did return to the skies, the rain didn't come down again. After over two hours of testing, Zonga opening to the public a little before 8pm. After standing in line for over two hours waiting for the test runs to finish it was finally our chance to ride this Schwarzkopf classic, and what a classic it is.

My first and only ride to date was taken in row 10, left side, which is the last row. Since I was on the third train of the day, I had the opportunity to watch some people come off the ride and give their quick "reviews" to friends waiting in line. It did not look good from what I saw. The biggest comment I visually saw was that you banged your head throughout the ride. Sure enough, watching the train run the course with riders I noticed some head bobbling but it didn't look bad enough to be painful.