Kentucky Kingdom, which opened in May 1987, nearly died completely after its opening season. Started as an extension of the State Fair and residing on the grounds, the park was closed before the end of the season, at which point the owners filed for bankruptcy and began auctioning off the rides. After its closure, Ed Hart and a group of investors purchased the park with aims to reopen it. After being closed through 1989, the park opened up once again in 1990 with new owners, new management, and a new slate of rides, including Tin Lizzies, The Enterprise, Whirling Dervish, The Vampire, and Thunder Run.

Thunder Run is a triple out-&-back wooden coaster designed by Curtis D. Summers and John Fetterman. The rides layout and design originally started as a design that was to be used for a roller coaster at LeSourdsville Lake (Americana Park) in 1986, rumored to have been sketched out on a cocktail napkin by John Fetterman. For whatever reasons, the coaster was never built at LeSourdsville, but four years later, the design was used four years later for Thunder Run in 1990.

The ride begins with a quick left-hand U-turn out of the station and up the coasters 90 foot tall lift hill, followed by a dipping and rising leftward turnaround to build up anticipation for the wild ride ahead. Slowing to a crawl, the train seems to hang over the edge as it finally begins descending the 74 foot first drop, hitting a top speed 53 mph as the hill bottoms out. The track then begins to bank heavily to the left, at nearly a 70-degree angle, as the train rockets through a ground-hugging, flat U-turn just wide of the turn between the station and the lift. Exiting the turn, the train flies over a low bunny-hill, twisting slightly to the right at the end of the hill, then soars over two more progressively bigger airtime hills. Again at ground level, the track banks heavily to the left again into another flat U-turn. The track then turns slightly to the right over a low, long, drawn-out hill, before hoping over a very small and wicked bunny hill. The track then rises up and banks left into the only elevated turnaround on the entire course, slamming the train somewhat as it enters the turn. The track the drops back down to the ground and into another small, airtime filled hill, followed by the rides last low, flat, heavily banked, very tight, left-hand U-turn, which finishes with a rise into the final break run.

Designed as a custom triple-out-&-back coaster, Thunder Run was later used as inspiration for the Hurler coasters installed and Kings Dominion and Carowinds in 1996. These two coasters were near-clones of Thunder Run with only small modifications in the sizes and abruptness of some of the hills, and their layouts are completely straight other than the U-turns. All three coasters are well-known for their abundant air-time, but are perhaps better known for their extreme jack-hammering, roughness, and constant re-tracking in the turns.