The History of Volcano: The Blast Coaster

Removed in 2019. Operated 1998 to 2018.

For twenty years, an artificial volcano erupted at the edge of Kings Dominion, and the thing bursting out of its peak was a roller coaster. Volcano: The Blast Coaster was the first launched roller coaster in the world to turn its riders upside down. It is gone now, but it is still one of the most missed rides the park ever built.

The first of its kind

Volcano opened in August 1998, built by Intamin inside a mountain that had stood in the park since 1979. It was the world's first inverted launched coaster. Instead of climbing a lift hill, it used magnetic launches to hurl the train forward, then a second, surprise launch fired it straight up and out of the volcano's summit, rolling riders onto their backs 155 feet in the air before three heartline rolls and an 80-foot drop. Fire effects occasionally erupted from the peak when conditions allowed. The launch technology was so new that the ride suffered rollbacks and delays in its first seasons, until the park added a second set of launch motors.

Why it's gone

Volcano closed a few weeks into the 2018 season citing reliability, rider capacity, and overall customer satisfaction, and the whole structure, mountain included, was demolished by 2019. A section of track and a car were preserved by the National Roller Coaster Museum. In 2025 the park built Rapterra on the same ground, with a volcanic caldera in its plaza as a deliberate nod to what came before.

One thing to know

It was the first launched roller coaster in the world to turn its riders upside down.

Volcano: The Blast Coaster is one chapter in the fifty-year history of Kings Dominion.

Volcano: The Blast Coaster at a glance