Dragon Challenge (Universal's Islands of Adventure)
| Click here to watch the on-ride POV |
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| Dragon Challenge | |||||||||||||
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| Manufacturer | Bolliger & Mabillard | ||||||||||||
| Designer / calculations | Ing.-Büro Stengel GmbH | ||||||||||||
| Type | Steel - Inverted - Twin | ||||||||||||
| Propulsion | Chain lift hill | ||||||||||||
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Dragon Challenge was a pair of dueling inverted roller coasters located at Universal's Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida, USA. The ride was the only dueling inverting roller coaster in the world. The ride was themed to two dragons and was originally named "Dueling Dragons". It featured a layout with two completely unique courses and three near misses between the two trains, which brought riders' feet within several inches of riders on the other train. The ride was constructed by Bolliger & Mabillard of Switzerland. Both sides were two minutes and twenty-five seconds long. The ride originally opened in 1999 with the name, "Dueling Dragons", but was renamed "Dragon Challenge" in 2010 when the ride's themed area was rethemed into The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
On July 24, 2017, Universal Studios announced that Dragon Challenge would close on September 4 and be replaced by a new Wizarding World roller coaster in 2019.[1] The two roller coasters were subsequently scrapped. While the Incredible Hulk, also at Islands of Adventure, had its track replaced during 2015 and 2016, it is the first B&M roller coaster to be removed completely.
Incident[edit | edit source]
In 2012, Universal decided to make the Dragons stop dueling. While riding, three riders said they got hit by something, injuring them. After examining the coaster, the park stated that it could not be the coaster. But, they think it was that people had shoes, rocks, or something to throw at the other riders in the other train. After this incident, Universal stopped the coasters from running simultaneously. They also added metal detectors to all of their large coasters' entrances.
Photo Gallery[edit | edit source]
The layout of the two tracks
