Scorpion



Scorpion is a steel looping roller coaster located at Busch Gardens Tampa in Tampa, Florida. It opened in 1980 as a part of the newly added Timbuktu section that gave the park a complete circuit, linking the Congo section to the Nairobi section of the park. Scorpion, to this day, remains one of the most popular rides in the Pantopia section. In 2004, before it was Pantopia as a part of the park's Timbuktu renovation, Scorpion was repainted from its original paint scheme of orange track and black supports to red track with blue supports (a paint scheme similar to SheiKra).

The ride was designed by Anton Schwarzkopf as one of his Silverarrow model looping coasters. Only three of these exist today, this coaster, Twist n' Shout at Loudoun Castle in Scotland (which has closed as of 2010), and the other is known as "Looping Star" owned by the travelling fair Magic World in Africa.

Layout
Scorpion has a fairly simple and twisted layout involving a single Vertical Loop as the signature element. After the train is carried 60 feet into the air, riders twist down a drop and pass through the single Vertical Loop element. Following the loop, the train goes through a pretzel turnaround and threads the vertical loop. The train circles around a 900° helix and enters the brake run.