In the year 2001, the west coast of the United States' largest coaster-driven theme park made an unexpected move that left rollercoaster lovers screaming for more. Valencia, California's Six Flags Magic Mountain rolled out an unprecedented three steel coasters that year: X, Goliath Junior and Deja Vu; increasing Magic Mountain's coaster count to a whopping 15 and at the same time achieving the claim to the record of having the most rollercoasters of any park on the planet earth. In 2003, the California coasterdom held on to that record by adding on one more coaster to that count when Scream! took off as the region's first floorless-train above-track looper. Coming from the folks that brought two other steel coasters to life at Six Flags Magic Mountain, Batman: the Ride and Riddler's Revenge, this Bolliger and Mabillard-designed concept was based on the first such floorless ride from the Swiss duo: Medusa at Jackson, New Jersey's Six Flags Great Adventure. When the coaster opened the following Spring, thrillseekers had a sure reason to Scream!, with seven inversions in five different types, a top height of 150 feet, speeds reaching 65 miles an hour, and a total of 3,985 feet of blue and yellow-colored box track.

After all thirty-two riders are seated and restrained in one of three blue, purple and yellow trains, the loading floor of the station below retracts and the ride is off, out of the station with a turn leading to the lift hill. The chain carries the trainload up to reach 150 feet in the air, and at the top of the lift the train dips and levels off before beginning the first dive. It's time to Scream! as passengers are carried back down, feet dangling over the yellow rails. Once at the base of the drop, the track pulls right back up into - you guessed it - a Vertical Loop, taking the train up 128 feet before circling back down again. A Dive Loop is the next head-over-heels maneuver to be encountered, sending Screamers up through an inverting half-Corkscrew-like climb and back down through an uninverting 180-degree half-loop to the bottom. The classic third inversion for a floorless coaster takes riders up through three hundred and sixty horizontal degrees of zero-gravity fun in the Zero-G Roll, and then a 78-foot tall Cobra Roll flips the train over twice and sends it back in the direction that it came from. After a brief slowdown in a set of mid-course block brakes, Scream! heads back down and around to the final two inversions - the Interlocking Corkscrews, flipping riders over once, turning around, and flipping them one last time. At last, the three-minute ride onboard Scream! concludes with a highly-banked ride around a final curve threading over the first drop and onto the brakes.

If you plan on visiting Six Flags Magic Mountain this coming Spring, get ready to Scream!