G Force

G Force arrived at Drayton Manor in 2005 as a replacement for the park's looping Pinfari rollercoaster, Klondike Gold Mine, which was moved to Hayling Island for a time.

The new coaster was quite an upgrade on the rattling old mine themed coaster, bringing smooth modern X-Car trains with only lapbar style restraints, a beyond-vertical lift hill and three extreme inversions.

The lift hill gave quite an adrenaline rush itself, before the main part of the ride even started. The train initially rose vertically upwards, before slowly transitioning further and further beyond vertical, leaving riders hanging upside down with only the lapbar restraints holding them in.

After being released from the lift, the train picked up speed to shoot over a large airtime hill which gave way to a vertical loop. Two further inversions followed in a “Bent Cuban Eight” formation, before the train rose back up to hit the brake run and returned back to its upper level station.

The layout, although short, was great if rather intense. G Force’s main problem was its restraints: While they should have felt much more freeing than traditional over-the-shoulder restraints, instead they would progressively get tighter and tighter throughout the ride, eventually making it an effort to breathe comfortably. This was a problem throughout G Force’s life, which was strange as other coasters with X-Car style trains don’t seem to have the issue.

G Force’s station sat in a large light grey two storey building. Riders would enter at ground level, with a cattle pen queueline taking up most of the ground floor. Inside was quite bare and industrial, although there were two large projection screens which would show Windows Media Player style visualisations. The centrepiece was a giant Tesla coil mounted on the ceiling which, for the first few years at least, would periodically generate sparks above the heads of awaiting riders. The actual station was on the first floor of the building – the queue would eventually proceed up a flight of stairs to reach the platform.

On busy days at the park, G Force suffered with its low capacity caused by its single train. Apparently Drayton Manor were originally going to buy two trains, but they cancelled the order for the second when Maurer Söhne failed to reduce the ride’s noise level – a condition of the original design.

G Force was retired from the park’s ride lineup at the end of the 2018 season, having experienced maintenance issues.

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