Rita (roller coaster)

Rita is an Intamin accelerator coaster located in the Dark Forest area of Alton Towers in Staffordshire Moorlands, England. Open since 2005, it accelerates to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds. The ride is loosely based on drag racing, though this partly changed with the retheming of "Ug Land" into the "Dark Forest" in 2010. It now stands as an abandoned drag racer that is used as the escape cart to escape the Dark Forest. Riders must be over 1.4m tall to ride. In 2006, a similar coaster opened at Thorpe Park, called Stealth which accelerates faster at 80 mph in 2.3 seconds.The ride was temporarily renamed "Camilla - Queen of Speed" on 9 April 2005 to celebrate the marriage of Prince Charles to Camilla Parker Bowles. This simply involved banner signage to notify guests of the name change.Ride experienceRita was Alton Towers' new attraction for the 2005 season. The ride starts with the train racing forward from the station area, accelerating from 0 - 60 mp/h in 2.5 seconds, and negotiates high speed corners and air-time hills (The layout is a figure-of-8) before then reaching the brake run parallel with the station. The track is painted red but the higher parts of the track are painted green due to a rule which states that no rollercoaster should be visible above the tree line. The ride has since been partly rethemed to support the theme of nearby Thirteen which opened in March 2010. The ride control cabin and entrance have been refurbished to look 'engulfed' by the branches of the Dark Forest area. As well as the control cabin and Rita tyres being rethemed to suit the Dark Forest, the cars have been rethemed with a darker grey tint to the bottom of the cars with forest stains over the flames to make it fit. It still has the blue and purple cars with flames but with a tint of grey to make Rita look damaged by the supernatural forest.