Six Flags Great Adventure Unveils The Joker Coaster; It Gets Stuck: Report

JACKSON, NJ -- Coaster lovers, get ready to flip ... and float ... and free-fall.

Six Flags Great Adventure is unveiling The Joker -- its 14th coaster -- this weekend, and promises an experience that riders won't soon forget.

Described as the ultimate ride for thrill seekers, The Joker is supposed to open to coaster fanatics and Six Flags season pass holders on Friday and to the general public on Saturday, when the amusement park opens for the season.

On Thursday, during a media event that included coaster enthusiasts, however, The Joker was shut down for the day after two riders got stuck on the ride, according to a report on NJ.com.

Kristin Siebeneicher, a spokeswoman for Six Flags, told NJ.com that park officials hope to reopen the ride to the public on Friday but they won't know that for sure until the end of the day Thursday.

The ride was running flawlessly nonstop for the three days prior to the unveiling, Siebeneicher told NJ.com.

A Toms River man was one of the riders who got stuck when the car he was in got stuck while swinging.

The Joker features 4D wing vehicles that seat up to eight people per vehicle that ride on either side of a twisting I-box track frame. Magnetic technology allows smooth head-over-heels free-fly flips while the ride moves along the track, and the seats allow riders to face each other as they're flipping along, the park said.

There is a 120-foot-tall, 90-degree hill that is ascended by an elevator-style, chain link lift, and two beyond 90-degree “raven” drops that give riders the sensation of free-falling, the park said.

“Six Flags Great Adventure has a legendary reputation for the biggest lineup of coasters in the Northeast, and now The Joker takes this collection to the edge and beyond,” roller coaster expert Tim Baldwin said in a news release from the park. “This genre of ride is so unique. There is no track below you and nothing above you, so riders are truly doing these acrobatic maneuvers mid-air. The combination of flips, drops and ultra-cool straight-up 120-foot lift makes this coaster totally different than all the other world-class coasters at Great Adventure.”

“The Joker is undeniably one of the greatest DC Comics Super-Villains ever created. Only someone with his warped sense of humor could provide this level of insanity ─ or spinsanity ─ with a new, vertical coaster that delivers gravity-defying somersaults with utter unpredictability,” Six Flags Great Adventure President John Fitzgerald said. “It is the perfect addition to our dynamic line-up of award-winning roller coasters because this ride delivers total mayhem with its next-generation, cutting-edge thrills.”

Check it out for yourself in this video provided by Six Flags: