White Trash Carny Ride #7: Cobra

Cobra, made by Venture Rides, is one of my favorite WTCRs. Every Cobra I’ve been on looks like it’s stuck in a 70s timewarp but they all give wonderfully intense rides.

Cobra is comprised of a long boom tilted on an angle with two, six seat satellites on each end. The seats look like skeletons of Paratrooper cars with a tiny overhead bar to keep you from flying out. Seats are also equipped with a foot rest to kick back and relax, or something like that.

The ride utilizes tire drives for all forms of movement. This means that the ride performs horribly in rainy conditions with tires skidding and spurring as they attempt to turn the boom and satellites.

The ride is named after a cobra…but I fail to see the resemblance.

Cobra loads one satellite at a time so while the lower one is loading, the upper one just sits up there and usually revolves if there is too much weight on one side. Once both of the satellites are loaded, the boom will start to rotate with the satellites kicking in soon after. Both spin in the same direction which means riders experience some substantial G forces.

Cobra was my first big ride. I was maybe 5 or 6 years old when I first rode it. It’s a miracle that I liked the ride considering how intense it is.

One of my good friends and I have an inside joke about the Cobra involving what we call “carny water.” However, this could be seen as a cautionary tale as well…

The boom is basically a frame with metal covering the bottom and sides. When it rains the spaces on top of the boom will fill up with water and, since the metal covering isn’t exactly water tight, it’ll start to drip under the boom. Of course under the boom are where the 2 satellites are, so you’ll travel through a stream of disgusting oil and whatever filled “carny water,” especially if you’re just waiting up in the air while the other satellite is loading. Once, my friend and I were the only ones on the upper satellite and because of the previous rain storm the tires slipped and sent us through the carny water. The satellite spun through it, lost steam, and then started to rotate backwards sending us through it yet again! Unfortunately this continued until the ride started.

Wisdom re-made the Cobra  in 2008 with their version called ‘Viper.’ There’s a few differences between the two rides, however. One is that the frame can raise and lower to board everyone at once resulting in lower load time. Viper also uses shoulder harnesses to secure riders instead of a lapbar. The final difference is that Viper’s seats don’t swing out nearly as far as Cobra. A person who worked on the ride informed me that the couples that attach the seats wore out very quickly on the original Cobra, so the reduced swinging was more of a  safety measure than anything. Still, they should have just re-worked the couplings instead of hurting the ride experience.

Here’s a YouTube video of the Cobra by CoasterForce.

And here’s a video of Viper by Shawn Britt