The Mouse no longer just roars, he now roars at 65 m.p.h.
That’s thanks to General Motors and Test Track, the latest ride at Walt Disney World and a novel engineering and marketing collaboration between General Motors Corp. and Walt Disney Co.
In Disney’s Epcot Center, Test Track measures 5,246 feet, just a mouse ear short of a mile. Combining a 150,000-square-foot pavilion and outdoor track, it simulates the tests GM puts its preproduction vehicles through at its Proving Ground in Milford, Mich.
Its creators argue that it’s miles ahead of the thrill-ride competition.
“It is without a doubt the most popular attraction here,” said John Maciarz, GM’s site director for the project. “Test Track is the place people run to when they drop the rope and let everybody into Epcot in the morning.”
Rick Sylvain, Disney’s director of media relations, says Disney does not release attendance figures, even percent increases or decreases, for competitive reasons. However, Amusement Business magazine has pegged the likely increase due to Test Track at 5 to 8 percent, which is impressive when you consider that theme park industry attendance fell down about 10 percent nationally in 1998.
Test Track is proving to be so popular that Epcot has been opening at 7:30 a.m., 90 minutes earlier than usual; 90- to 120-minute waits are not uncommon.
What’s hooking people isn’t just the 65-m.p.h. top speed, though that’s about double of last decade’s main thrill, Space Mountain, but rather the “automotive experience.”
(Tim O’Brien at Amusement Business magazine, said that “Disney’s never seen itself or marketed itself as an `amusement park’ or thrill-ride park per se–they were always above that. Competition from the larger thrill rides at Universal (Studios) has forced them to open their horizons, however. Test Track sure looks and feels like a giant leap up from Disney’s more historically sedate rides.”)
“Test Track is an opportunity to unveil a restricted area in our testing process and share it with consumers,” said Phil Guarascio, GM vice president of advertising and corporate marketing, told Inside Test Track, a 40-page publication GM distributed to its 500,000 U.S. employees to mark the ride’s opening in March.
“We knew the GM Proving Ground gave the Imagineers (the folks responsible for the creation from concept to installation of Disney resorts, theme parks and attractions, real-estate developments, regional entertainment venues and cyberspace new media projects) great material.”
The challenge, however, was in translating that “great material” from the Milford, Mich., proving ground, which is off-limits to all but proving ground workers, into a ride that would provide thrills without revealing secrets.
Milford has 128 miles of roads or drive-through “validation tests,” such as high-speed braking and cornering, where GM puts prototypes through their paces.
The Imagineers descended on the proving grounds and the GM Technical Center, where future models are designed and clay models built, in 1994-’95 to find out how a GM vehicle goes from a concept into production.
GM’s test drivers also gave the Disney creative team the same Advanced Driver Training course they provide Secret Service, CIA and FBI agents and state police.
The Imagineers’ eye for detail proved to be so sharp that not only were the types of tool boxes used in GM garages replicated but also the type of adhesive notes.
“I was surprised that Test Track actually offers a very accurate feel for the types of testing we do at Milford,” said Proving Ground communications director Jerry Wilson. “That includes curves, handling, acceleration and an ABS braking stop versus a car with non-ABS that was very true on the ride.
“Disney sound engineers were also out here recording every sound imaginable–braking, squealing tires, tire-to-pavement hum, car horns, even.”
Orrin Shively led the Disney Imagineering Test Track team through story development, ride layout, design and production, as well as show elements such as special effects, audio and video design, set design and on-board vehicle performance.
“The creative challenge was to find a way to re-create the spirit of what goes on at the Proving Ground, but to do it in a way that would be entertaining and educational for our Epcot guests,” said Shively, who used to design advanced concept vehicles as part of Honda’s Research & Development team, as well as working with such companies as Suzuki, Mazda, Nikon and Alpine.
“(Presumably), none of the guests have visited a proving ground, so we had to creatively tell a story that had never been told. So, we `took reality,’ handpicked some elements and then choreographed that into a ride that conveyed that (GM Proving Ground) experience.”
That was easier said than done because the ride would have to be in motion 365 days per year, with each car traveling 55,000 miles per year, using Test Track cars whose three onboard computers give them more processing power than the space shuttle.
Shively said the reason for such computer power is that each car’s ride-and-performance characteristics would be significantly different when carrying, say, four 65-pound Girl Scouts than up to six 220-pound men.
Shively said: “I remember we went out to Mesa, Ariz. (GM’s Desert Proving Ground), and on one of the banked ovals, we spent an entire half-day, myself, an engineer and a Proving Ground driver, just driving around the very same corner at different speeds” to get a feel for lateral motion and G-forces.
Shively’s half-day on the Arizona oval is what Test Track riders experience when the cars pop out of the indoor portion of the ride and its 250-horsepower motor plus centrifugal forces whip the cars around a curve at 65 m.p.h.
To keep the Imagineers immersed in an automotive mindset once the Proving Ground research was done, Shively had a sprawling scale model of Test Track built in a former Chevrolet Camaro assembly plant in Van Nuys, Calif. (near the Imagineers’ home at Disneyland in Anaheim).
“To have your job `immortalized’ in a Disney attraction is just a thrill beyond belief,” said the Proving Ground’s Wilson. “I’d visited it a few times during development, but when I walked into Test Track after it was finally completed, well, it felt like I was right back at work again.”
THE LONG, WINDING ROAD TO TEST TRACK
Autopia was never like this.
Disney’s fantasy “thrill rides” of the mid- to late 1950s have given way to “reality-based” rides. So it is with the GM-Disney Test Track, a new ride at the Epcot Center.
“This is the longest and fastest thrill attraction that we have at any Disney theme park in the world,” said Al Weiss, president of Walt Disney World. “Test Track throws a dizzying array of maneuvers at our guests. They climb hills, experience hairpin turns, bounce down bumpy roads and zip along straightaways (and banks) at 65 m.p.h.”
The ride simulates the tests General Motors puts pre-production vehicles through at its Proving Ground in Milford, Mich.: Hill-climb, suspension, brake, environmental-chamber, ride-handling, barrier and high-speed tests.
The 5-minute, 34-second ride accelerates to 65 m.p.h. on a 50-degree banked curve.
Test Track’s cars, which hold up to six people, pass through a 150,000-square foot pavilion, including areas simulating arctic cold and desert heat. About half of the track runs outside, where top speeds are obtained.
Test Track opened March 17, 12 to 18 months behind schedule and with a budget estimated to be $100 million borne by GM and Disney, said Tim O’Brien, theme park editor for Amusement Business magazine, which tracks the live entertainment industry.
