EPCOT
We arrived at EPCOT at 9am sharp -- keep in mind we had just got off our red-eye flight, and I didn't sleep on it. In fact, neither myself nor Ash would sleep for 40 hours! Die hard WDW'ers, I guess.
Naturally, the first place we went was Test Track!
Test Track
What can I say? If you saw my last trip report, the ride was still in development (in 1997!). I was pretty upset then that I didn't get to ride, so needless to say, I was thrilled to FINALLY go on it. And it was almost worth the wait!
After our first ride, you quickly find out why it took so darn long to perfect. It uses *98* computers, and each car has three! There are so many places where the ride stops and different things happen, that it must be a nightmare to control! It broke down a lot... one time we were ALMOST on board and it broke for 4 hours. But we did ride twice in the same day.
A quick ride description: After a long walk through the queue, you board the six passenger cars. You're dispatched three at a time, and you wind up a spiral that reminded me a little too much of World of Motion. From there, you're sent right into the hill climb-- straight up, though not that fast. From there, you do a Belgian block and German block test, which makes the ride bumpy. From there, you stop and see a screen, telling you about the brake test-- without Anti-lock braking (ABS) first. You quickly accelerate towards a turn, and seem to lose control when you hit the brakes. You then stop at another screen, and they say that ABS is now engaged-- and off you go! This time the car makes it through without incident. You pause again at another video screen, and see a comparison of your very car doing the two tests, side by side. It was neat.
You then go through the environmental chambers, which are hot, cold, and "corrosive", in that order. You then go through a series of handling tests-- meaning sharp curves at 25-35mph. At one point you seem like you're about to hit a 18-wheeler head-on, but you swerve out of the way. I was looking forward to that part, and was a bit disappointed. From there, you watch a GM car do a phony crash test, and then you turn right and seem to do the same thing-- right before you're about to "hit" the wall, they take your picture (see mine below), and amazingly, the walls open up!
This is the best part -- the inside was fun, the outside is thrilling. You head straight out the back of the building, acclerating to about 35mph. You take a big 180-degree turn to the left, and then they say "okay, hit it!" and it really picks up speed, culminating with a 65mph swing around the front of the building, through a very banked turn. That part was very, very cool. After this, it's back into the building, where you see an infrared video of you and your car-- to see where you're hot!
The cars are very cool.. they have little LCD screens in each of the two rows, with your speed and other info on it. Very cool!
Now, some pictures...
Left: Here we are, in line, a little after 9am. It has yet to open.
Right: The same shot, at night. Very cool.
Left: Even the sign out front is cool.
Right: Inside the queue.
Left: This thing here moves around and around on these seats, I guess showing wear over time.
Right: Some dummy parts.
Left: A test vehicle coming back from the high speed loop.
Right: ... and a white one...
Left: I don't know if you can tell, but there are tons of buttons and displays on the back of these amazing vehicles.
Right: No, this one's not real.. it's in this "car wash" that must really be nice on hot summer days.
Left: Here's our car! That's me in the rear-right seat, Ashley in the rear-middle. The guy in front of us has a little girl who's hiding (as we're heading towards the crash test!)
More of Future World on the next page...