Iron Gwazi, Hybrid roller coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, Florida, USA
Iron Gwazi is a hybrid roller coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay in Florida that combines wooden supports with a steel track and rises to 206 feet (63 meters). The ride accelerates to 76 miles per hour (122 kilometers per hour) and features multiple inversions and steep drops along its circuit.
Gwazi opened on June 18, 1999, built by Great Coasters International on the site of the former Anheuser-Busch brewery, with dueling wooden tracks named Lion and Tiger. The Tiger side closed after the 2012 season and the Lion side on February 1, 2015. Rocky Mountain Construction then retrofitted the structure, and Iron Gwazi opened on March 11, 2022.
The name Gwazi refers to a mythical creature with a tiger's head and a lion's body, chosen after research by Washington University in St. Louis. The original ride's two tracks were named Lion and Tiger to match that dueling theme. The rebuilt coaster's logo and lead car carry a crocodile head, and the supports keep the natural wood colour beneath a light purple track.
The attraction requires minimum height standards and is suitable only for riders without certain health conditions. Queue times can reach several hours on weekends and during holiday periods, so arriving early is advisable.
The renovation preserved about a quarter of the original wooden framework while adding new elements like inversions and a barrel roll drop. This blend of old and new engineering is relatively uncommon in roller coasters of this scale.
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