Amusement Park History
The Giant Inverted Boomerang was a model of roller coaster made by Vekoma. It was, as its name would suggest, a larger and inverted version of their classic Boomerang model, featuring a nearly identical track layout, merely scaled up and put on a suspended roller coaster.
The ride notably features two massive vertical lift hill towers and the layout overlaps itself, unlike the classic boomerang model. But this ride model would not have the same success as the classic Boomerang, almost immediately facing problems, and only having less than 10 built overall compared to the original model's dozens of versions around the world.
The first four models of this coaster would all be built by parks owned/ operated by Six Flags, and three of them in 2001. All three of the first wave would be themed as Deja Vu with a green and blue color scheme, and would be built in Six Flags Great America, Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Six Flags Over Georgia.
But these openings would be troubled and cause delays to all three versions, as well the additional model slated to open the next year in Parque Warner Madrid, then known as Warner Bros Movie World Madrid.
The ride featured frequent maintenance problems in all of its versions, with problems including the ride stalling as well as various issues with the ride's trains. The actual ride experience meanwhile only experienced a mixed reception at best, making it not really worth the issues that the ride presented immediately following the opening of the coaster, and in some cases even before.
While Six Flags no longer owned all four inverted boomerangs at this point, having stopped operating Parque Warner Madrid, it would close two of its now three versions of the ride in the Fall of 2007. With the rides still being relatively new, Six Flags sold them to hopefully make some money off of the troublesome ride. The Great America version was moved to Silverwood, and the Over Georgia version would be sold to a park in Brazil where it never opened.
The Magic Mountain version would continue to operate until 2011, when Six Flags would announce it would be moved to another park in the chain rather than sold. It would open in 2012 at Six Flags New England now known as Goliath. The move would cause notable criticism from then-US Representative Ed Markey, who had long been a supporter of stronger regulation of amusement park rides, but nonetheless, it would still come to the park.
This version of the ride would feature new trains from Premier rides that used one continuous row, as opposed to the staggered seating of the original trains. But these trains would cause their own problems, causing new complaints of discomfort and pain in the ride.
2011 would also bring the construction of the fifth Giant Inverted Boomerang at a park in China, the first since the initial Six Flags versions. Another would be built in Russia in 2014, but it would be the last as of the moment.
The Six Flags New England Goliath would continue to feature its version of the ride model, but problems with the ride would be a constant, and it had incredibly high downtime. Notably, in 2016, damage to a lift hill would cause the ride to be closed for multiple months while repairs were made.
Following Six Flags New England being unable to open due to the COVID19 pandemic in 2020, the ride was removed from the park map and did not open for the 2021 season. It remains unclear if it will ever reopen given its problems and Six Flags closing troublesome rides chainwide in response to the pandemic.
The Giant Inverted Boomerang attempted to create a more thrilling version of Vekomas's reliable Boomerang model. Instead, it was a constantly troubled ride model that never caught on, and it's original customer has tried to completely rid itself of over the years. If Goliath does not reopen, then only four versions of this ride will remain operational of this largely failed ride model.
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