The Theme Park Wars were just sent through a loop with the announcement of a revolutionary new roller coaster that appears to defy the laws of physics.

Unlike any roller coaster in Florida or the United States, Six Flags Great America released details Thursday of what the park is billing as the world’s fastest wooden roller coaster, with a twist.

Standing 165-feet-tall, “Goliath” as it will be called, will drop 180-feet at an 80 degree angle.  Once opened, Six Flags believes the ride will travel 72 mph, faster than the legal speed limit on I-4 and the Florida Turnpike.

“Goliath will be unmatched,” wrote Hank Salemi, Six Flags Great America park president in a prepared statement.  “All of the ride elements, including an 85 degree plunge down the tallest drop on a wooden roller coaster, make Goliath the most extreme wooden roller coaster in the world.”

While the decent and high rate of speed may take your breath away, the ride is gathering attention for how it will flip riders upside down.

Goliath will feature several inversions normally reserved for steel coasters.   An animated rendering of the new ride shows an inversion that will leave riders hanging upside down for an extended period of time as they navigate the underside of a hill during the middle of the ride.  The element is brand new to the amusement industry.

The inversion is being billed as a “180-degree zero-gravity roll,” while another planned upside down element is described as an “inverted zero-gravity stall.”

While Goliath will utilize a wooden support structure, the rails which passenger cars will travel along will be made of steel.  The mix of materials have some roller coaster enthusiasts questioning if the ride is a “hybrid” coaster, and not a traditional wooden coaster.

Six Flags in recent years has taken existing wooden coasters at Six Flags Over Texas and Fiesta Texas and renovated them, trashing the wood tracks and replacing them using a steel track, while retaining much of the previous wood support structure.  The builder, Rocky Mountain Construction of Hayden, Idaho calls this “Iron Horse Track” or I-Box Track.

Earlier this season, Rocky Mountain Construction opened “Outlaw Run” at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. The ride features a wooden structure with Iron Horse Track, allowing passenger trains to navigate several inversions.

The new Goliath will sit upon hallowed ground.  Space allocated for the new roller coaster in the rear of Six Flags Great America was previously home to “Iron Wolf,” the first roller coaster from the design team of Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M). The stand-up Iron Wolf was retired in 2011 and moved to Six Flags America outside of Washington, DC where it reopened as “Apocalypse” in 2012. 

B&M went go on to design eight roller coasters in Florida.  The multi-looping “Kumba” first roared into Busch Gardens Tampa Bay in 1993 and was followed by the inverted “Montu” (1996) and diving “SheiKra” (2005).

“The Incredible Hulk” and the two intertwined inverted coasters of “Dragons Challenge” (formerly named “Dueling Dragons”) opened at Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure in 1999.

SeaWorld’s floorless roller coaster, “Kraken,” opened in 2000, while the flying “Manta” joined the ranks in 2010.

Goliath is expected to use Iron Wolf’s former boarding station and queue line, both of which have sat empty the past two seasons.

If a trip to Great America is now in your travel plans for 2014, the Village of Gurnee, Illinois is located north of Chicago and south of Milwaukee.  Several air carriers offer direct flights to both cities from Orlando International Airport.  From Chicago or Milwaukee, expect an hour drive to the park.

The Village of Gurnee zoning board recently held public discussions whether to approve construction of Goliath’s 165-foot-tall lift hill, since it would stand taller than most structures in the community. Gurnee requires the park to seek approval for ride more than 125-feet-tall.  Those meetings gave away some clues to the new ride’s nature. Yet, any hints about inversions were a surprise saved for Thursday’s announcement.

The new Goliath is slated to open in 2014. While the ride is new, several of parks in the Six Flags chain have rides that already use the Goliath name on steel roller coasters.