Gold Striker Review We're here at California's Great America. Today, we're here to review Gold Striker, one of the better GCIs we've ridden and a fantastic wooden coaster. You pull down the black lap bar and away we go. You roll around a turn and through a couple dips and tight turns. I must say, it's a fun little pre-lift. Anyways, time to head up the lifthill and start the actual ride. The lifthill itself gives us a good view of California's Great America and all of its corporate neighbors next door. However, that view soon dissapers as we enter into a tunnel. And yeah, we're heading down the tunneled first drop. It may be a small first drop, but this little sucker has POWER!!! It has some laterals as we curve down to the right and once we're at the bottom of that first drop, we just go FLYING!!! We head around a long curved turn, that actually is at a downward slope, so we're going even faster now. We shread through another turn, get some more laterals, and head through this tiny little airtime hill. Whatever. Doesn't seem like it's gonna do much. HOLY CRAP!!! There's a nice pop of ejector air. We then rise up a hill before slamming to the right as we head around another high speed banked turn. We then head down another drop as we TAKE THE TUNNEL!!! The drop gives us some more speed and a little laterals as we just flash right through it, heading through another long turn that pins us to the side and just pours the laterals on us. We pop through another tiny hill, get a little more airtime, and then head around another banked turnaround. That of course, leads us to more laterals and more little pops of airtime. Yeah, that's all over this ride. We then make another sharp turn, heading straight into the twisted wooden mess. We get another pop of airtime as we rise up into another banked turnaround, which gives us some really nice laterals. We dip into the twisted mess some more and...damn. This ride is hard to keep track of. It just goes everywhere. We get more laterals, more pops of airtime, and head around a turn around that pins us to the side for some time. Get more pops of airtime and a final turn in the big wooden mess of a structure that Gold Striker has until we glide straight into the brake run. Wow. Just...wow. Holy Crap. This ride is just absolutely INSANE. It's always flying, always ejecting you, always slamming you, and I love every moment of it. Clearly, you can see why this is my current favorite GCI. Definetly make sure you check it out when visiting California's Great America. 8/10 Location: California's Great America Opened: 2013 Built by: Great Coasters International Last Ridden: September 22, 2018 Gold Striker Photos Home