Hayden company helps rebuild, enhance Six Flags roller coaster
<p>Frank Inmon welds a piece of the new Texas Giant, a roller coaster in Arlington, Texas, which will be enhanced with a new steel track made by Rocky Mountain Construction in Hayden.</p>
HAYDEN - Rocky Mountain Construction Group Inc., of Hayden, has landed a $4.8 million contract with Six Flags Inc. for work on a roller coaster at Six Flags Over Texas, in Arlington, the owners say.
Rocky Mountain, at 11470 Carisa Court, which designs, builds, installs and repairs roller coasters and water-park features, started manufacturing parts for the Six Flags Over Texas coaster earlier this year.
Six Flags said in an announcement this month that it is spending $10 million enhancing what it calls the Texas Giant coaster. The new Texas Giant coaster will have a hybrid design, combining features of a classic wood coaster structure with a steel track.
Fred Grubb and Suanne Dedmon, the husband and wife owners of Rocky Mountain Construction, say the company is fortunate to be in a specialized area of business and be awarded work on such a large project.
"We have a good reputation with Six Flags," Dedmon said.
The Texas Giant coaster is 5,000 feet long and is 158 feet tall at its peak, and it was originally built about 20 years ago, Grubb said.
"Six Flags wanted to save it, and wanted to make it a redesigned ride using the existing footprint," Grubb said.
When it was built it was the tallest roller coaster in the world of its kind, with a conventional wood track, Grubb said. One million pounds of steel will be going into the coaster's enhancement.
Grubb said the redesign will make the ride faster, with steeper downs and more banking on turns.
Rocky Mountain Construction has a patent pending on the new technology that it has developed and is needed to manufacture the hybrid track, Grubb said.
Rocky Mountain Construction and engineering consulting services company Ride Centerline, of Hyde Park, Utah, spent about three years developing the new technology that will be used on the enhancement of the Texas Giant, he said.
The company has employees in Texas now dismantling structural parts of the coaster necessary to put the new steel parts in place.
Testing of the enhanced coaster will take place in December, Grubb said. The ride would open some time in 2011.
Rocky Mountain Construction employs 20 people, and it operates in 8,800 square feet of space at the Carisa Court location that's owned by Grubb and Dedmon. The company also leases about 10,000 square feet of space there. The company opened its doors in 2000.
It employs carpenters, iron workers, crane operators, excavators, welders and it contracts with engineers. It has customers worldwide, including South Korea, Brazil, and has recently bid a job in China, Grubb said.
He said there are about five companies around the world that do similar work to Rocky Mountain Construction.